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Wonore de Balzac 
PRIVATE LIFE 


VOLUME V 


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SAVARUS AT THE WEDDING 


—_—_—— 


When Albert finally succeeded in meeting Madame 
@’ Argaiolo, it was at Florence, just when her wed- 
ding was taking place. Our poor friend fainted in 
the church, and has never been able, even when he 
was at death's door, to obtain an explanation from 
that woman, who must have an extraordinary some- 


thing in place of a heart. 


THE, NOVEES 


OF 


HONORE bE BALZAC 


NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME 
COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 


ALBERT SAVARUS A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


BY GEORGE B. IVES 


WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BY GUSTAVE GREUX, CLAUDE 
FAIVRE AND HENRI-JOSEPH DUBOUCHET, AFTER 
PAINTINGS BY ORESTE CORTAZZO 


IN ONE VOLUME 


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ALBERT SAVARUS 
# 


One of the few salons frequented by the Arch- 
bishop of Besancon under the Restoration, and the 
one to which he was most partial, was that of 
Madame la Baronne de Watteville. A single word 
concerning this lady, who was perhaps the most 
important personage of her sex in Besancon. 

Monsieur de Watteville, grand-nephew of the 
famous Watteville, luckiest and most illustrious of 
murderers and renegades, whose extraordinary ad- 
ventures are too much a matter of history to be nar- 
rated here, was as peaceable as his great-uncle was 
turbulent. After passing his early years in Franche- 
Comté like a worm in the chink of a wainscoting, he 
had married the heiress of the celebrated De Rupt 
family. Mademoiselle de Rupt brought an estate 
worth twenty thousand francs a year to add to 
Baron de Watteville’s ten thousand a year in lands 
and houses. The Swiss gentleman’s crest—the 
Wattevilles are Swiss—was quartered upon the 
ancient escutcheon of the De Rupts. This mar- 
riage, which had been agreed upon since 1802, was 
celebrated in 1815, after the second Restoration. 
Three years after the birth of a daughter, all 

(5) 


6 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Madame de Watteville’s grandparents were dead and 
their estates settled. They thereupon sold Mon- 
sieur de Watteville’s house and took up their 
‘abode on Rue de la Préfecture in the noble old 
De Rupt mansion, whose vast garden reaches to 
Rue du Perron. Madame de Watteville as a girl 
was religiously inclined, and was even more so 
after her marriage. She was one of the queens 
of the devout sisterhood which gave the best society 
of Besancon a gloomy air and prudish manners 
quite in harmony with the character of the city. 

Monsieur le Baron de Watteville, a dry, thin, 
spiritless creature, had the appearance of being 
utterly worn out, although nobody could say by 
what, for he enjoyed the densest ignorance; but as 
his wife was a warm blonde, and as her natural 
harshness of character had become proverbial—they 
still say: angular as Madame de Watteville—cer- 
tain wags among the magistracy averred that the 
baron had worn himself out against that rock. 
Rupt is evidently derived from rupes. Keen observ- 
ers of social phenomena will not fail to remark that 
Rosalie was the only fruit of the union of the Watte- 
villes and the De Rupts. 

Monsieur de Watteville passed his life in a sump- 
tuous turner’s workshop; he turned! As a comple- 
ment to that mode of existence he had adopted the 
fad of making collections. In the eyes of philo- 
sophical doctors who have given their attention to 
the study of madness, this tendency to make collec- 
tions is the first step toward mental alienation, when 


ALBERT SAVARUS 7 


it expends itself upon trifles. Baron de Watteville 
collected shells, insects and geological fragments 
from Besancon and its neighborhood. A few con- 
tradictory spirits, women especially, said of Mon- 
sieur de Watteville: 

‘‘He has a noble mind! he saw at the outset of 
his married life that he couldn’t get the upper hand 
of his wife, so he devoted his energies to a mechan- 
ical occupation and good living.’’ 

The De Rupt mansion did not lack a certain 
splendor worthy of Louis XIV., and bore marks of 
the nobility of the two families that were united in 
1815. There was an air of old-time magnificence 
that knew nothing of fashion. The candelabra of 
leaf-shaped crystals, the Chinese silk hangings, the 
damasks, the carpets, the gilded furniture, all were 
in harmony with the old-fashioned liveries and the 
old servants. Although served in tarnished family 
plate, around a glass épergne embellished with 
pieces of Saxon porcelain, everything partaken of 
was of the best. The wines selected by Monsieur 
de Watteville, who, to occupy his time and give 
variety to his life, acted as his own butler, enjoyed 
departmental celebrity, so to speak. Madame de 
Watteville’s fortune was considerable, but her hus- 
band’s, which consisted of the estate of Rouxey, 
worth about ten thousand a year, was not aug- 
mented by any inheritance. It is useless to remark 
that the very close intimacy between Madame de 
Watteville and the archbishop had resulted in do- 
mesticating beneath her roof the three or four clever 


8 ALBERT SAVARUS 


and distinguished abbés in the archbishopric, who 
were not averse to the pleasures of the table. At 
a grand dinner given in honor of some wedding or 
other in the month of September, 1834, just when 
the women were drawn up in a circle in front of the 
fireplace in the salon, and the men standing in 
groups at the windows, the announcement of the 
arrival of Monsieur l’Abbé de Grancey was greeted 
with a loud murmur of interest. 

‘Well, how about the lawsuit?’’ they cried. 

**Won!’’ replied the vicar-general. ‘‘The decree 
of the court, that we despaired of obtaining, you 
know why—’”’ 

This was an allusion to the composition of the 
Royal Court since 1830. The Legitimists had 
almost all resigned therefrom. 

“‘_-The decree is in our favor on every point, 
and reverses the judgment of the court below.’’ 

‘*Everybody thought you had lost.’”’ 

‘*And so we should have but for me. I told our 
advocate to take himself off to Paris, and just as the 
battle was about to begin I succeeded in retaining 
another advocate, to whom we owe our success— 
an extraordinary man—’”’ 

*‘Of Besancon ?’’ artlessly inquired Monsieur de 
Watteville. 

‘‘Of Besancon,’’ the Abbé de Grancey replied. 

“‘Ah! yes, Savaron,’’ observed a handsome youth 
named Soulas, who was sitting beside the baroness. 

*‘He spent five or six nights on the case, and 
went through all the pleadings and documents; he 


ALBERT SAVARUS 9 


had seven or eight conferences of several hours each 
with me,’’ continued Monsieur de Grancey, who 
had not appeared at the De Rupt mansion for three 
weeks. ‘‘At last Monsieur Savaron completely 
routed the famous advocate our opponents had down 
from Paris. The young man’s performance was 
marvelous, so the councillors say. Thus, the chap- 
ter has won a double victory: it has triumphed in 
law, and in politics it has overcome liberalism in 
the person of the defender of our Hodtel de Ville. 
‘Our opponents,’ said our advocate, ‘should not ex- 
pect to find everywhere a willingness to rend arch- 
bishoprics asunder—’ The president was compelled 
to demand silence. All the Bisontins applauded. 
Thus the ownership of the buildings of the old con- 
vent remains in the chapter of the cathedral of 
Besancon. Monsieur Savaron, moreover, invited 
his professional brother from Paris to dine with 
him after the adjournment. In accepting the invi- 
tation he said: ‘Honor to whom honor is due!’ 
and congratulated him without the slightest ill- 
feeling.’’ 

‘Where did you unearth this advocate, pray ?’’ 
inquired Madame de Watteville. ‘‘I have never 
heard that name before.’’ 

**But you can see his windows from here,”’ re- 
plied the vicar-general. ‘‘Monsieur Savaron lives 
on Rue du Perron, and there is only a wall between 
his garden and yours.’’ 

“‘He’s not of the Comté, is he?’’ said Monsieur 
de Watteville. 


10 ALBERT SAVARUS 


‘*He comes so near being of nowhere, that nobody 
knows whence he is,’’ said Madame de Chavon- 
court. 

‘*But who is he?”’? asked Madame de Watteville, 
as she took Monsieur de Soulas’s arm to lead the 
way to the dining-room. ‘“‘If he’s a stranger how 
did he happen to settle in Besancon? It’s a very 
strange notion for an advocate.’’ 

‘Very strange!’’ echoed young Amédée de Soulas, 
as to whose previous life a few words must be said 
to make this narrative more intelligible. 

From time immemorial France and England have 
carried on a large traffic in trifles,—a traffic the 
more generally pursued in that it is not subject to 
the tyranny of the custom-house. The fashions 
that we call English in Paris are called French in 
London, and vice versa. The hostility between the 
two nations disappears on two points—in the 
matter of words and in that of clothing. God Save 
the King, the English national air, is a piece of music 
composed by Lulli for the choruses of Esther or 
Athalie. The paniers brought to Paris by an 
Englishwoman were invented in London, everyone 
knows why, by a Frenchwoman, the famous Duch- 
ess of Portsmouth; we began by making such fun 
of them that the first Englishwoman who appeared 
in one at the Tuileries came within an ace of being 
trampled on by the mob; but they were adopted. 
That fashion tyrannized over the women of Europe 
for a half-century. After the peace of 1815 we 
joked for a whole year about the Englishwomen’s 


ALBERT SAVARUS II 


long waists, and all Paris went to see Potier and 
Brunet in Les Anglaises pour Rire; but in 1816 and 
1817 the Frenchwoman’s girdle, which used to cut 
her breast in two in 1814, descended by degrees 
until it outlined her hips. During the last ten 
years England has bestowed upon us two little 
linguistic gifts. To the incroyable, the merveilleux, 
the é/égant, the three heirs of the petits-maitres—cox- 
combs—whose etymology is far from refined,—have 
succeeded the dandy and the lion. The lion did not 
engender the /ionne. The /onne we owe to Alfred 
de Musset’s famous ballad: Avez vous vu dans Bar- 
celone—C’est ma maitresse, ma lionne ;—there has 
been a fusion, or, if you please, confusion, between 
the two terms and the two dominant ideas. When 
Paris, which consumes as many chefs-d’a@uvre as 
absurdities, is entertained by one of the latter, it 
is hard to deprive the provinces of it. And so, as 
soon as the /ion began to exhibit in Paris his mane 
and beard and moustaches, his waistcoats and his 
monocle, held in place without the assistance of his 
hands by drawing together the cheek and the arch 
of the eyebrow, the capitals of certain departments 
witnessed an invasion of sub-lions who protested, 
by the elegance of their trouser-straps, against the 
careless habits of their compatriots. Thus Be- 
sancon, in 1834, was honored with the presence of a 
lion in the person of this Monsieur Amédée-Syl- 
vain-Jacques de Soulas,—written Souleyas at the 
time of the Spanish occupation. Amédée de Soulas 
is probably the only person in Besancon descended 


12 ALBERT SAVARUS 


from a Spanish family. Spain sent people into 
Franche-Comté to look after her interests, but very 
few Spaniards settled there. The Soulases remained 
there because of their relations with Cardinal de 
Granvelle. Young Monsieur de Soulas was always 
talking about leaving Besancon, a melancholy, reli- 
gion-ridden town, but little interested in literary 
matters, a garrison town, addicted to war, whose 
manners and morals and general appearance are 
worth the trouble of describing. This opinion made 
it excusable for him to live, like a man who was 
uncertain of his future, in three very scantily fur- 
nished rooms at the end of Rue Neuve, where it 
enters Rue de la Préfecture. 

Young Monsieur de Soulas could not dispense with 
having atiger. This tiger was the son of one of 
his farmers, a little stocky fellow of fourteen, named 
Babylas. The lion had dressed his tiger with ex- 
cellent taste: a short iron-gray redingote with a 
polished leather belt, blue plush breeches, red waist- 
coat, varnished top-boots, round hat with black 
band, yellow buttons with the Soulas arms. Amédée 
kept the boy in white cotton gloves, gave him his 
washing and thirty-six francs a month, out of which 
he had to board himself,—monstrous wages in the 
eyes of the grisettes of Besancon: four hundred and 
twenty francs to a boy of fifteen, without counting 
perquisites! The perquisites consisted of the pro- 
ceeds of the sale of cast-off clothing, a pourboire 
when Soulas sold one of his two horses, and the sale 
of manure. The two horses, although kept on a 


ALBERT SAVARUS 13 


basis of rigid economy, cost him eight hundred 
francs a year on an average. His account for sun- 
dries at Paris, perfurnery, cravats, jewelry, jars of 
varnish, clothes, amounted to twelve hundred 
francs. If you add together the groom or tiger, 
horses, luxuries, and rent at six hundred francs, you 
will arrive at a total of three thousand francs. Now, 
young Monsieur de Soulas’s father had left him only 
about four thousand a year, produced by certain 
beggarly farms which required a constant outlay, 
and that same outlay, too, rendered the income from 
them painfully uncertain. Barely three francs a 
day remained for the lion’s living expenses, pocket- 
money and gambling. So he very often dined out, 
and breakfasted with remarkable frugality. When 
he was absolutely driven to dine at his own expense 
he sent his tiger to fetch two dishes from a cook- 
shop, on which he rarely expended more than 
twenty-five sous. Young Monsieur de Soulas was 
looked upon as a spendthrift, a man who threw 
money away upon foolish things; whereas the poor 
fellow struggled to make the two ends of the year 
meet with a talent and craft that would have won 
everlasting renown for a good housekeeper. People 
have no idea, especially at Besancon, what an im- 
pression may be produced at a provincial capital by 
six francs’ worth of varnish displayed upon boots or 
shoes, yellow gloves at fifty sous cleaned with the 
utmost secrecy so that they may be worn three 
times, cravats at ten francs that last three months, 
four waistcoats at twenty-five francs, and trousers 


14 ALBERT SAVARUS 


that fit tightly around the boot! How could it be 
otherwise, when we see women in Paris bestowing 
particular attention upon idiots who come to their 
houses and outshine the most eminent men, because 
of such frivolous appurtenances which anyone can 
procure for fifteen louis, hair-curling and a Holland 
linen shirt included? 

If this unfortunate youth seems to you to have 
become a lion at very small expense, understand 
that Amédée de Soulas had been three times to 
Switzerland, traveling by carriage by easy stages; 
twice to Paris and once from Paris to England. He 
was looked upon as an experienced traveler, and 
could say: When I was in England, etc. The dow- 
agers in like manner would say to him: You, who 
have been in England, etc. He had been as far south 
as Lombardy and had seen the Italian lakes. He 
read all the new books. When he was cleaning his 
gloves, Babylas the tiger would say to callers: 
‘Monsieur is at work.’”’ An attempt had been made 
to depreciate the young man by saying of him: 
‘‘He is a man of very advanced ideas.’’—Amédée 
possessed a talent for uttering fashionable common- 
places with true Besancon gravity, whereby he ob- 
tained credit for being one of the most enlightened 
members of the nobility. He wore fashionable 
jewelry and his thoughts were guided by the press. 

In 1834 Amédée was a young man of twenty- 
five, of medium height and dark complexion, chest 
tremendously expanded, shoulders thrown back in a 
corresponding degree, thighs somewhat rounded, a 


ALBERT SAVARUS Is 


foot already inclined to be fat, a white, plump hand, 
a fringe of beard, moustaches which rivaled those 
of the garrison, a fat, red, good-natured face, flat 
nose, brown eyes wholly devoid of expression; not 
a trace of his Spanish blood, by the way. He was 
progressing rapidly toward an obesity fatal to his 
pretensions. His nails were well cared for, his 
beard neatly brushed, the most trifling details of his 
dress looked after with the scrupulousness of an 
Englishman. So it was that Amédée de Soulas was 
considered to be the handsomest man in Besancon. 
A hairdresser, who came to curl his hair at a stated 
hour—another luxury at sixty francs a year !—ex- 
tolled him as the sovereign arbiter of fashion and 
refinement. Amédée slept late, made his toilette, 
and rode out to one of his farms about noon to in- 
dulge in pistol-shooting. He devoted himself to 
that occupation as earnestly as Lord Byron did in 
his last days. Then he would return to the city 
about three o’clock, gazed at with admiring eyes as 
he rode along, by the grisettes and everybody who 
happened to be at their windows. After certain 
supposititious labors which were supposed to occupy 
his time until four o’clock, he would dress to dine 
out, and pass the evening playing whist in the 
salons of the Bisontine aristocracy; at eleven he 
went home and to bed. No man’s life could be 
more open, more virtuous or more irreproachable, 
for he was scrupulously regular at religious services 
on Sundays and holy days. 





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In order that you may understand what an abnor- 
mal existence this was, it is necessary to say a few 
words concerning the peculiarities of Besancon. No 
city offers a more obstinate, dogged resistance to 
progress. At Besancon the public officials, govern- 
ment clerks, soldiers, all those, in short, who are sent 
thither by the government or from Paris to occupy 
any position whatsoever, are designated as a whole 
by the expressive name of the colony. The colony 
is neutral ground, the only place where, as at 
church, the noble and the bourgeois society of the 
city can meet. Upon that neutral ground, arise 
from a word, a look or a gesture, enmities between 
family and family, between bourgeois women and 
women of noble birth, which last until death, and 
dig still deeper the impassable chasms by which the 
two divisions of society are separated. With the 
exception of the Clermont-Mont-Saint-Jeans, the 
Beauffremonts, the De Sceys, the Gramonts and 
some few others who lived only on their country 
estates in Franche-Comté, the Bisontine nobility 
dates back no more than two centuries, to the time 
of the conquest by Louis XIV. It is essentially a 
whig society, stiff-necked and solemn and dogmatic 
and haughty and arrogant to a degree surpassing 
even the court of Vienna, for in those qualities the 
Bisontines would put the Viennese salons to shame. 

2 (17) 


18 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Of Victor Hugo, Nodier, Fourier, the glories of the 
city, even the names are never heard, nobody thinks 
about them. Marriages between noble families are 
arranged while the children are in their cradles, for 
the most trifling matters receive the same attention 
among them as those of the most serious importance. 
No stranger nor outsider has ever made his way 
into one of those houses, and not even titled colo- 
nels or other officers belonging to the best families 
in France—when there happen to be any such in 
the garrison—can gain admission there without 
diplomatic manceuvres that Prince de Talleyrand 
would have been very glad to know the secret of for 
use in a congress. In 1834 Amédée was the only 
man in Besancon who wore trouser-straps. This 
will explain young Monsieur de Soulas’s /ionship. 
A short anecdote will serve to give you a clear con- 
ception of Besancon. 

Some little time before the day on which this 
story begins the prefecture found it necessary to 
send to Paris for an editor for its journal, in order 
to defend itself against the little Gazette which the 
great Gazette had set up there, and against the 
Patriote which was acting under the goad of the 
Republic. Parissentdown a young man who knew 
nothing about the Comté, and began operations with 
a leading article of the Charivari school. The 
leader of the government party, an official from the 
Hodtel-de-Ville, sent for the journalist and said to 
him: 

‘Understand, monsieur, that we are a serious 


ALBERT SAVARUS 19 


people here—yes, more than serious, stolid,—we 
don’t want to be amused and we fly into a rage if 
we have to laugh. Be as hard to digest as the 
densest amplifications of the Revue des Deux 
Mondes, and you will hardly come up to the Bison- 
tine standard.’’ 

The editor did not need a second hint, and talked 
philosophical patois impossible to understand. He 
made a complete success. 

If young Monsieur de Soulas did not lose ground 
in the esteem of the salons of Besancon it was pure 
vanity on their part; the aristocracy was very glad 
to have the air of modernizing itself, and to be able 
to present to noble Parisians, traveling in the Comté, 
a young man who was almost like themselves. All 
this hidden toil, all this dust thrown in the eyes, 
this apparent folly, this latent sagacity, had an 
object, otherwise the Bisontine lion would not have 
remained in the province. Amédée desired to effect 
an advantageous match by proving some day that 
his farms were not mortgaged and that he had saved 
money. He desired to hold possession of the city, 
to be the comeliest and most fashionable man there, 
in order to secure first the attention, then the hand 
of Mademoiselle Rosalie de Watteville: ah! 

In 1830, when young Monsieur de Soulas entered 
upon the profession of dandy, Rosalie was fourteen 
years old. In 1834, therefore, Mademoiselle de 
Watteville was approaching the age at which young 
persons are readily attracted by all the peculiari- 
ties which commended Amédée to the notice of the 


20 ALBERT SAVARUS 


city. There are many lions who become lions from 
selfish motives or as a speculation. The Watte- 
villes, who had enjoyed an income of fifty thousand 
francs for twelve years, spent no more than twenty- 
four thousand, although they entertained the best 
society of Besancon on Mondays and Fridays. On 
Mondays they gave a dinner-party, and on Fridays 
an evening-party. Think of the results of twenty- 
six thousand francs laid by every year for twelve 
years, and invested with the good judgment char- 
acteristic of those old families! It was universally 
believed that Madame de Watteville, considering that 
her investments in real estate were large enough, 
had put her savings into the three per cents in 1830. 
Rosalie’s dot therefore should amount to about forty 
thousand francs a year. So for five years the lion 
had burrowed like a mole to get the upper hand of 
the strait-laced baroness’s esteem, while maintaining 
an attitude calculated to flatter Mademoiselle de 
Watteville’s self-love. The baroness was in the 
secret of the expedients by which Amédée succeeded 
in maintaining his position in Besancon, and es- 
teemed him highly therefor. Soulas had taken his 
place beneath the baroness’s wing when she was 
thirty years old,—he had then had the audacity to 
admire her and make her his idol; he had reacheda 
point at which he could venture to tell her, and no 
other woman in the world, the free tone of conversa- 
tion which almost all pious females love to listen to, 
being authorized by their transcendent virtue to gaze 
into abysses without falling in and to contemplate 


ALBERT SAVARUS 21 


the snares of the devil without getting caught 
therein. Do you understand why this lion did not 
permit himself to indulge in the slightest semblance 
of a love-affair? he kept his life clean and lived in 
the street, so to speak, in order that he might play 
the part of immolated lover for the baroness’s bene- 
fit, and regale her mind with the sins she forbade 
her flesh to commit. A man who possesses the 
privilege of insinuating equivocal words in the ears 
of a devotee is a charming man in her eyes. If this 
exemplary lion had been more familiar with the 
workings of the human heart, he might without risk 
have permitted himself to indulge in some slight 
love-affairs among the grisettes of Besancon, who 
looked upon him as a king: his interests with the 
rigid, prudish baroness would have been advanced 
thereby. To Rosalie this Cato seemed a spend- 
thrift; he professed to be devoted to a fashionable 
life, he described to her the existence of a society 
woman in Paris, whither he expected to go asa 
deputy. These skilful manoeuvres were rewarded 
with complete success. In 1834, the mothers of the 
forty noble families which composed the cream of 
Besancon society pointed to young Monsieur 
Amédée de Soulas as the most delightful young man 
in the city; no one dared dispute the possession of 
that title with the cock of the walk at the De Rupt 
mansion, and all Besancon looked upon him as the 
future husband of Rosalie de Watteville. There 
had already been some words exchanged upon this 
subject between the baroness and Amédée—words 


22 ALBERT SAVARUS 


to which the baron’s alleged insignificance imparted 
definiteness. 

Mademoiselle de Watteville, whose fortune, des- 
tined some day to be enormous, made her a person- 
age of considerable importance, had been brought up 
within the four walls of the De Rupt mansion,— 
which her mother rarely left, so fond was she of the 
dear archbishop,—and had been held in close 
restraint by an exclusively religious education and 
by the despotism of her mother, who kept a tight 
rein upon her from principle. Rosalie knew abso- 
lutely nothing. Does one know anything from 
having studied geography in Guthrie, sacred his- 
tory, ancient history, the history of France and the 
four rules, all passed through the sieve of an old 
Jesuit? Drawing, music and dancing were prohib- 
ited, as being more likely to corrupt than to embel- 
lish life. The baroness taught her daughter every- 
thing it is possible to know about tapestry work and 
the petty occupations of the sex: sewing, knitting 
and crocheting. At seventeen Rosalie had read 
nothing but the Lettres Edifiantes and works upon 
heraldry. Never had a newspaper dishonored her 
glance. She heard mass every morning at the 
cathedral, where she went with her mother, re- 
turned to breakfast, worked in her room after a 
short walk in the garden, and sat beside the 
baroness, receiving callers until dinner time; after 
dinner, except on Mondays and Fridays, she accom- 
panied Madame de Watteville to parties, where she 
could say nothing more than the maternal decree 


ALBERT SAVARUS 23 


permitted. At eighteen Mademoiselle de Watteville 
was a Slender, frail, flat-breasted, light-haired, 
pale-faced girl of the utmost insignificance. Her 
pale blue eyes were enlivened by the play of the 
eyelids, which cast a shadow on her cheeks when 
she looked down. A few freckles marred the purity 
of her well-shaped brow. Her face was exactly like 
the faces of saints drawn by Albert Diirer and the 
painters before Perugino: the same round, yet finely 
drawn outline, the same delicacy of feature, sad- 
dened by religious ecstasy, the same solemn inno- 
cence. Everything about her, even to her attitude, 
reminded one of the virgins whose beauty in all its 
mystic splendor is apparent only to the eyes of a 
careful connoisseur. Her hands were beautifully 
shaped, but red, and she had the loveliest foot, a 
real chatelaine’s foot. Ordinarily she wore simple 
cotton dresses; but on Sundays and holidays her 
mother allowed her to wear silk. Her dresses, all 
made in Besancon, made her almost ugly; while her 
mother tried to borrow grace and beauty and style 
from the fashions of Paris, whence she procured the 
smallest details of her toilette by availing herself of 
the services of young Monsieur de Soulas. Rosalie 
had never worn silk stockings or laced boots, only 
cotton stockings and leather shoes. On gala days 
she was arrayed in a muslin gown, with bronzed 
leather shoes, and with no ornaments in her hair. 
Her education and her modest bearing concealed a 
character of iron. Physiologists and all profound 
observers of human nature will tell you, to your 


24 ALBERT SAVARUS 


great astonishment perhaps, that, in families, pecu- 
liarities of temperament and character, genius, in- 
tellectual qualities, reappear at long intervals 
exactly the same as what are called hereditary dis- 
eases. Thus talent, like the gout, sometimes skips 
two generations. We have a notable instance of 
this phenomenon in the case of George Sand, in 
whom mental force, the will and the imagination of 
Marshal Saxe, whose natural granddaughter she is, 
seem to live again. The peremptory disposition, 
the romantic audacity of the famous De Watteville 
were reproduced in the person of this grandniece, 
augmented by the tenacity and indomitable pride of 
the De Rupt blood. But these qualities—defects, if 
you choose—were as deeply hidden in the girl’s 
seemingly pliable and feeble mind, as the boiling 
lava in the bowels of a mountain before it becomes 
a volcano. Madame de Watteville alone may have 
had a suspicion of this legacy of the two bloods. 
She was so harsh to her Rosalie that one day, when 
the archbishop reproved her for treating her so 
cruelly, she replied: 

‘*Let me manage her, monseigneur; I know her! 
she has more than one Beelzebub in her skin!’’ 

The baroness watched her daughter the more 
closely because she thought her own reputation as a 
mother was at stake. Indeed there was nothing 
else for her to do. Clotilde de Rupt, then thirty- 
five years of age, and almost the widow of a hus- 
band who turned egg-cups in all sorts of wood, who 
was mad on the subject of making iron-wood circles 


ALBERT SAVARUS 25 


with six radii, who made snuff-boxes for his friends, 
was flirting in good earnest with Amédée de Soulas. 
When that young man was in the house she would 
send her daughter away and call her back time after 
time, trying to detect indications of jealousy in her 
young heart, so that she might have an opportunity 
to suppress them. She imitated the police in its 
relations with the Republicans; but it was all in 
vain, for Rosalie betrayed no symptoms of rebel- 
lion. Thereupon the austere devotee reproved her 
daughter for her utter insensibility. Rosalie knew 
her mother well enough to be sure that if she had 
found young Monsieur de Soulas Zo her liking, she 
would have drawn down a sharp rebuke upon her 
own head. And so, to all her mother’s turmoils she 
replied by some of those phrases so inappropriately 
called jesuitical, for the Jesuits were men of strong 
character, and this sort of dissimulation is the 
breastwork behind which weakness seeks shelter. 
The mother therefore treated her daughter as an 
artful minx. If unhappily a gleam of the real char- 
acter of the Wattevilles and De Rupts happened to 
break through the clouds, the mother made use of 
the respect children owe their parents as a weapon 
to reduce Rosalie to passive obedience. This 
secret combat was waged in the most retired pre- 
cincts of private life, behind closed doors. The 
vicar-general, the dear Abbé de Grancey, the friend 
of the defunct archbishop, great as was his power as 
grand-penitentiary of the diocese, was unable to 
divine whether this struggle had given birth toa 


26 ALBERT SAVARUS 


feeling of hatred between the mother and daughter, 
whether the mother was jealous in anticipation, or 
whether the attention Amédée was paying the young 
woman in her mother’s person had gone beyond 
bounds. In his capacity of friend of the family he 
was neither the mother’s confessor nor the daugh- 
ter’s. Rosalie, who had been somewhat over- 
whipped, morally speaking, apropos of young 
Monsieur de Soulas, could not bear him, to use a 
familiar expression. And so, when he spoke to her, 
attempting to take her heart by surprise, she always 
received him very coldly. This repugnance, visi- 
ble to no eye but her mother’s, was a constant sub- 
ject of admonition. 

‘*Rosalie, I don’t see why you pretend to be so 
indifferent to Amédée; is it because he’s a friend of 
the family, and because your father and | are fond of 
him ?”’ 

‘“‘Why! mamma,’’ the poor child retorted one 
day, ‘‘if I received him pleasantly I should be even 
more to blame, shouldn’t I?”’ 

‘What does this mean ?’’ cried Madame de Watte- 
ville. ‘‘What do you mean by saying such things ? 
Your mother is unjust, perhaps, and according to 
you, she would be unjust in all cases! Never allow 
your lips to make such an answer to your mother !’’ 
—etc. 

This quarrel lasted three hours and three-quar- 
ters, and Rosalie called attention to that fact. Her 
mother turned pale with rage, and sent the girl to 
her room, where she puzzled over the meaning of 


ALBERT SAVARUS 27 


the episode, but could make nothing of it, so inno- 
cent was she! So young Monsieur de Soulas, who 
was believed by all Besancon to be very near the 
goal toward which he was journeying with flowing 
cravats, aided by jars of varnish, and which caused 
him to: use so much black wax for his moustaches, 
so many pretty waistcoats, horseshoes and corsets 
—for he wore a leather vest, the lion’s corset ;— 
Amédée, we say, was farther from it than the first 
chance comer, although he had the dignified and 
noble Abbé de Grancey on his side. Moreover, 
Rosalie did not know, at the moment when this nar- 
rative begins, that young Comte Amédée de Soulas 
was her destined spouse. 











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‘‘Madame,’’ said Monsieur de Soulas, addressing 
the baroness while the guests were waiting for the 
hot soup to cool, and attempting to impart a flavor 
of romance to his story, ‘‘one fine morning the 
mail-coach deposited at the Hotel National a gen- 
tleman from Paris, who, after looking about in 
search of apartments finally decided upon Mademoi- 
selle Galard’s first floor, Rue du Perron. The /for- 
eigner then went straight to the mayor’s office to 
deposit a declaration of his purpose to make Be- 
sancon his domicile for all purposes. Finally he 
caused his name to be entered on the roll of advo- 
cates of the royal court upon presenting his creden- 
tials duly authenticated, and he left a card with all 
his new brethren of the profession, the government 
officials, the councilors of the court, and all the 
members of the tribunal,—a card on which were the 
words: ALBERT SAVARON.”’ 

‘‘The name of Savaron is a famous one,”’ said 
Rosalie, who was very strong in heraldic knowledge. 
“‘The Savarons of Savarus are one of the most 
ancient, noble and wealthy families in Belgium.’’ 

‘He is a Frenchman and a poet,’’ replied Amédée 
de Soulas. ‘‘If he wants to adopt the crest of the 
Savarons of Savarus he must put a bar across it. 
There is but one Savarus left in Brabant, a wealthy 
heiress of marriageable age.’’ 

(29) 


30 ALBERT SAVARUS 


“The bar is a sign of illegitimacy, of course, but 
the bastard of a Comte de Savarus is a noble,’’ re- 
joined Mademoiselle de Watteville. 

‘‘Enough, Rosalie!’’ said the baroness. 

“You wanted her to know about heraldry,’’ said 
the baron, ‘‘and she knows all about it.”’ 

‘“‘Go on, Amédée.”’ 

‘*You understand that in a city where everyone 
is classified, known, dissected, boxed up, labeled, 
numbered, as in Besancon, Albert Savaron was re- 
ceived by our advocates without any difficulty. 
Everyone was satisfied when he had said: ‘Here’s 
a poor devil who doesn’t know his Besangon. Who 
the devil could have advised him to come here? 
what does he expect to do here? The idea of send- 
ing his card to the magistrates instead of calling on 
them in person—what a blunder!’ And so after 
three days no more was heard of Savaron. He took 
for his servant the late Monsieur Galard’s valet, 
Jéréme, who can cook a little. It has been all the 
easier to forget Albert Savaron, because no one has 
seen him or met him.”’ 

“‘Pray, doesn’t he go to mass?’’ said Madame de 
Chavoncourt. 

**He goes to Saint-Pierre on Sunday, but to the 
first mass, at eight o’clock. He gets up every night 
between one and two o’clock, works till eight, 
breakfasts, and then works again. He walks fifty 
or sixty times around his garden, returns to the 
house, dines, and goes to bed between six and 
seven.”’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 31 


‘“‘How do you know all this??? Madame de Cha- 
voncourt asked Monsieur de Soulas. 

“*In the first place, madame, I live on Rue Neuve, 
at the corner of Rue du Perron, and my rooms over- 
look the house where this mysterious individual 
lodges; then, my tiger and Jéréme are in the habit 
of exchanging ideas.”’ 

“*So you talk with Babylas, do you?” 

‘‘What do you expect me to do when I’m out 
driving ?”’ 

‘Well, how came you to take a stranger for your 
advocate ?’’ said the baroness, thus restoring the 
conversation to the vicar-general. 

‘The first president played this man the trick of 
appointing him to defend at the assizes a half-witted 
peasant, accused of forgery. Monsieur Savaron 
procured the poor fellow’s acquittal by establishing 
his innocence and proving that he was merely the 
tool of the real culprits. Notonly did his system of 
defense prevail, but he necessitated the arrest of 
two of the witnesses, who, being proved guilty, 
were convicted and sentenced. His argument made 
a great impression on the court and jury. One of 
the latter, a merchant, placed a suit of his own, in- 
volving a very nice question, in Monsieur Sava- 
ron’s hands the next day, and he won it. In the 
plight in which we were left by the impossibility 
of Monsieur Berryer’s coming to Besancon, Mon- 
sieur de Garcenault advised us to retain this 
Monsieur Albert Savaron, predicting a success- 
ful result. As soon as 1 saw and heard him, I 


32 ALBERT SAVARUS 


felt perfect confidence in him, and I made no 
mistake. ’”’ 

‘Is there anything so extraordinary about him?”’ 
asked Madame de Chavoncourt. 

“*Yes,’’ was the vicar-general’s reply. 

*‘Very well, tell us about it,’’ said Madame de 
Watteville. 

‘‘The first time I saw him,’’ said the Abbé de 
Grancey, ‘‘he received me in the room next the 
reception-room—Goodman Galard’s salon—which 
he has had painted like old oak, and the walls of 
which are lined with law-books in bookcases 
painted like the woodwork. The painted wain- 
scoting and the books are the only things that 
smack of luxury, for the furniture consists of an old 
carved wooden desk, six old chairs covered with 
tapestry, carmelite-colored window curtains, bor- 
dered with green, and a green carpet on the floor. 
The stove in the reception-room heats this library 
as well. As I waited, I did not think of my advo- 
cate as a man with youthful features. Thatstrange 
frame was quite in harmony with the picture it 
enclosed, for Monsieur Savaron appeared in a black 
merino dressing-gown, gathered in at the waist by 
a girdle of red cord, red slippers, a red flannel waist- 
coat and a red cap.’’ 

“‘The devil’s livery!’’ cried Madame de Watte- 
ville. 

‘“‘True,’’ said the abbé, ‘‘but a superb head; black 
hair with some few white hairs already sprinkled 
through it—hair such as the St. Peters and St. Pauls 


ALBERT SAVARUS 33 


have in our pictures, thick and glossy, coarse as 
horsehair—a neck white and round as a woman’s, a 
magnificent forehead divided by the furrow which 
great projects, great thoughts, profound meditation 
imprint upon great men’s foreheads; olive complex- 
ion with spots of red, square nose, eyes of fire, hol- 
low cheeks marked by two long wrinkles eloquent 
of suffering, mouth curled in a sardonic smile, small 
chin, a little too short and very thin; he has the 
mark of the crow’s foot on his temples, sunken eyes 
rolling about under the arches of the eyebrows like 
two glowing balls; but, despite all these indications 
of violent passion, his bearing is profoundly calm 
and resigned, his voice of a penetrating sweetness 
which surprised me at the Palais by its varied 
modulations—the voice of a born orator, now smooth 
and cunning, now plausible and insinuating, speaking 
in tones of thunder when occasion required, adapt- 
ing itself to sarcasm, and anon becoming sharp and 
incisive. Monsieur Albert Savaron is of middle 
height, neither stout nor thin. He has the hands of 
a prelate. The second time! called upon him he 
received me in his bedroom adjoining the library, 
and smiled at my amazement when | saw there a 
wretched commode, a villainous carpet, a cot-bed 
and calico curtains at the windows. He came out 
of his office, to which no one is ever admitted, so 
Jér6me told me, who never goes in himself, but 
simply knocks at the door. Monsieur Savaron him- 
self turned the key in the door before my eyes. 
The third time he was breakfasting most frugally 
3 


34 ALBERT SAVARUS 


in his library; but that time, as he had passed the 
night examining our documents, when our solicitor 
was with me, as our interview was likely to be a 
long one, and as dear Monsieur Girardet is long- 
winded, I had an opportunity to make a study of 
this stranger to Besancon. Certainly he is no 
ordinary man. There are more secrets than one 
hidden behind that mask, terrible at once and gen- 
tle, patient and impatient, well-rounded and deeply 
furrowed. 1 noticed that he was slightly bent like 
all men who have a heavy burden to carry.’’ 

‘Why did this eloquent man leave Paris? What 
was his purpose in coming to Besancon? Did no- 
body tell him how little chance strangers had of suc- 
ceeding here? They will make use of him, but the 
Bisontins will never let him make use of them. As 
long as he did come here, why has he spent so little 
money, why did it require the first president’s whim 
to bring him into notice?’’ said lovely Madame de 
Chavoncourt. 

**Having made a careful study of that handsome 
head,’’ replied Abbé de Grancey, with a shrewd 
glance at his interrupter, giving the impression that 
he was keeping something back,—‘‘and more espe- 
cially after hearing him reply this morning to one 
of the eagles of the Paris bar, it is my opinion that 
this man, who is apparently about thirty-five years 
old, will make a great sensation some day. —’’ 

‘‘Why do we trouble our heads about him? Your 
suit is won and you have paid him,’’ said Madame 
de Watteville, with her eye on her daughter, who 


ALBERT SAVARUS 35 


had been, as it were, hanging on the vicar-general’s 
lips, all the time he was speaking. 

The conversation thereupon took another direction 
and nothing more was said about Albert Savaron. 

The portrait drawn by the most enlightened of the 
vicars-general of the diocese had so much the more 
attraction of a romance for Rosalie since it had the 
savor of romance about it. For the first time in her 
life she found herself face to face with the extraor- 
dinary, the marvelous, on which all youthful imagi- 
nations love to dwell, and which curiosity, so 
ardent at Rosalie’s age, rushes forth to meet. What 
an ideal creature was this Albert, dark-browed, 
suffering, eloquent, hard-working, when contrasted 
by Mademoiselle de Watteville with yonder vulgar, 
fat-faced count, bursting with health, who talked 
amorous nonsense, and prated of fashion in face of 
the splendor of the ancient Comtes de Rupt! 
Amédée was simply the occasion of quarrels and 
reproaches, moreover, she knew him only too well, 
whereas this Albert Savaron offered many enigmas 
for solution. 

‘‘Albert Savaron de Savarus,’’ she repeated to 
herself. 

Oh! to see him, to catch a glimpse of him !—That 
was the longing of a young heart that had hitherto 
known no longing. She reviewed in her heart, in 
her imagination, in her brain, the most trivial 
words let fall by Abbé de Grancey, for every word 
had struck home. 

‘*A fine forehead,’’ she said to herself, looking at 


36 ALBERT SAVARUS 


the forehead of every man seated at the table, ‘‘I 
don’t see a single fine one here—Monsieur de 
Soulas’s bulges too much, Monsieur de Grancey’s is 
fine, but he’s seventy years old and hasn’t any hair, 
so you can’t tell where the forehead ends.”’ 

‘‘What’s the matter, Rosalie? you’re not eating.’’ 

“I’m not hungry, mamma,” said she.—‘‘The 
hands of a prelate,’’—she continued, mentally, ‘‘I 
don’t remember our dear archbishop’s hands, 
although he confirmed me.’’ 

At last, as she was still wandering hither and 
thither in the labyrinth of her reverie, she remem- 
bered that, when she happened to wake during the 
night, she had noticed from her bed a lighted win- 
dow shining through the trees of the two adjoining 
gardens. 

‘That must have been his light,’’ she said to her- 
self; ‘‘I may be able to see him! I will see him!’’ 

‘*Monsieur de Grancey, is the suit against the 
chapter entirely finished??? Rosalie suddenly 
asked the vicar-general during a momentary lull in 
the conversation. 

Madame de Watteville exchanged a swift glance 
with the vicar-general. 

“‘Of what consequence is it to you, my dear 
child?’’ she said to Rosalie, assuming a softness of 
manner which put her daughter on her guard for the 
rest of her days. 

‘‘They may take us up to the Court of Appeals; 
but our opponents will think twice before they do 
that,’’ the abbé replied. 


ALBERT SAVARUS 37 


“1 wouldn’t have believed that Rosalie could 
think about a law-suit during a whole dinner,’’ re- 
joined Madame de Watteville. 

“‘Nor would I,’’ said Rosalie with a dreamy ex- 
pression which called forth a laugh. ‘‘But Mon- 
sieur de Grancey was so engrossed by it, that I got 
interested in it too. It’s very innocent!’’ 

They left the table and returned to the salon. 
Throughout the evening Rosalie listened for any- 
thing more that might be said about Albert Savaron ; 
but, aside from the congratulations every new arri- 
val offered the abbé upon the result of the suit, 
which did not include any eulogiums upon the advo- 
cate, he was not mentioned. Mademoiselle de 
Watteville impatiently awaited the coming of night. 
She had promised herself to get up between two and 
three o’clock in the morning and look at the win- 
dows of Albert’s study. When that hour arrived 
she experienced something very like pleasure in gaz- 
ing at the light cast by the advocate’s candles 
through the trees which were almost denuded of 
their leaves. By means of the excellent eyesight 
possessed by young girls, and which curiosity seems 
to improve, she saw Albert writing and thought she 
could distinguish the color of the furnishings, which 
seemed to her to be red. A thick column of smoke 
ascended from the chimney. 

‘“When all the world is sleeping, he is awake— 
like God!’’ she said to herself. 

















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* 


The education of girls involves such serious prob- 
lems—for the future of a nation depends upon its 
mothers—that the University of France long ago set 
itself the task of paying no attention thereto. This 
is one of the problems. Should young girls be 
fully enlightened? should their intelligence be re- 
stricted? It need not be said that the religious 
system is one of restriction: if you enlighten their 
minds you make devils of them prematurely; if 
you prevent them from thinking you bring about 
the sudden explosion so well depicted in Moliére’s 
character of Agnes, and you place the restricted 
mind, so strange to everything, so perspicacious, 
and as swift to think and draw conclusions as the 
mind of a savage, at the mercy of an accident—an 
ominous crisis, brought about in Mademoiselle de 
Watteville’s case by the injudicious sketch which 
one of the most judicious abbés of the judicious 
chapter of Besancon permitted himself to draw at 
the dinner-table. 

The next morning Mademoiselle de Watteville,as 
she was dressing, was irresistibly impelled to gaze 
at Albert Savaron walking in the garden adjoining 
that of the De Rupt mansion. 

‘“‘What would have become of me,’’ she said to 
herself, ‘‘if he had lived elsewhere? I can see him. 
What is he thinking about ?’’ 

(39) 


40 ALBERT SAVARUS 


After she had seen, though at a distance, this ex- 
traordinary man, the only one whose face stood 
prominently forth from the mass of Bisontine faces 
she had hitherto seen, Rosalie leaped quickly to the 
thought of making her way into his apartments, of 
finding out the mctive of all this mystery, of hear- 
ing that eloquent voice, of receiving a glance from 
those beautiful eyes. She longed to do all that, 
but how could she gratify her longing? 

Throughout the whole day she drew her needle in 
and out of her embroidery with that dogged atten- 
tion of the maiden who seems, like Agnes, to be 
thinking of nothing, but who is thinking so deeply 
of everything that her wiles cannot fail to deceive. 
The result of this deep meditation on Rosalie’s part 
was a longing to confess. The next morning, after 
mass, she had a brief conference with Pére Giroud 
at Nétre-Dame, and cajoled him so completely that 
he agreed to hear her confession on Sunday morning 
at half-past seven, before the eight o’clock mass. 
She told a dozen lies in order that she might be 
able to be at the church, just once, at the hour when 
the advocate attended mass. Finally she was 
seized with a paroxysm of violent affection for her 
father, went to see him in his workshop and asked 
him innumerable questions about the wood-turner’s 
art, in order to make an opportunity to advise him 
to turn large pieces—columns, for instance. Hav- 
ing started her father on the subject of twisted 
columns, one of the stumbling-blocks in the turner’s 
profession, she advised him to take advantage of a 


ALBERT SAVARUS 4I 


pile of stones lying in the middle of the garden to 
have a grotto built, and in it he could place a little 
temple after the style of a belvedere, in which his 
twisted columns could be introduced and dazzle the 
eyes of his whole circle of acquaintances. 

In the midst of the delight which this suggestion 
afforded the poor man, on whose hands time hung 
so heavily, Rosalie kissed him and said: 

‘*Above all things, don’t tell mother where you 
got this idea; she’d scold me well.”’ 

‘‘Never fear,’? replied Monsieur de Watteville, 
who groaned as bitterly as his daughter under the 
oppression of the terrible daughter of the De Rupts. 

Thus, Rosalie was certain that she should soon see 
a charming observatory erected in the garden, from 
which her eyes could pierce the seclusion of the ad- 
vocate’s office. And there are men for whom young 
girls achieve such masterpieces of diplomacy, and 
for the most part, like Albert Savaron, they know 
nothing of it. 

The Sunday, so impatiently awaited, came at 
last, and Rosalie’s toilette was made with an atten- 
tion which brought a smile to the lips of Mariette, 
Madame and Mademoiselle de Watteville’s maid. 

“This is the first time | ever saw Mademoiselle 
so particular!’’ said Mariette. 

‘*You remind me,’’ said Rosalie, darting a glance 
at Mariette that brought the poppies to her cheeks, 
“that there are days when you are more so than on 
others. 

As she left the doorsteps, crossed the courtyard, 


42 ALBERT SAVARUS 


passed through the gate and walked along the street, 
Rosalie’s heart beat as violently as our hearts beat 
when we have a presentiment of some momentous 
event. She did not know until that moment what 
it was to walk through the streets: she had thought 
that her mother would read her project in her face 
and forbid her to go to confession; she felt a fresh 
current of blood flowing through her feet and lifted 
them as if she were walking in fire! She had natu- 
rally made the appointment with her confessor for 
quarter-past eight, and had told her mother eight 
o’clock, so that she might have a quarter of an 
hour to wait beside Albert. She reached the church 
before mass was said, and after repeating a short 
prayer, she went to see if Abbé Giroud was in his 
confessional, simply as an excuse for sauntering 
through the church. In this way she took up a 
position from which she could see Albert the 
moment he entered. 

A man must be atrociously ugly in order not to 
appear handsome to a young woman in the frame of 
mind to which Mademoiselle de Watteville’s curi- 
osity had brought her. Now Albert Savaron, who 
was a man certain to attract attention under any 
circumstances, made all the deeper impression upon 
Rosalie because his bearing, his gait, his attitude, 
everything about him, even to his clothing, had 
that indefinable something which can only be ex- 
pressed by the word mysterious! He entered. The 
church, until that moment gloomy, seemed to Rosa- 
lie brilliantly lighted. The girl was fascinated by 


ALBERT SAVARUS 43 


his slow, almost solemn step, as of a man who 
carries a world on his shoulders, and whose pene- 
trating glance, whose movements, agree in giving 
expression to a thought of destruction or of domina- 
tion. Rosalie at that moment fully understood the 
meaning of the vicar-general’s words: yes, those 
yellowish-brown eyes, diversified with threads of 
gold, veiled an ardent temperament that betrayed 
itself by sudden flashes. Rosalie, with an impru- 
dence which did not pass unnoticed by Mariette, 
placed herself in the advocate’s path in such a way 
as to exchange a glance with him; and that glance, 
sought by her, changed the current of her blood, 
which foamed and boiled as if its heat were in- 
creased twofold. As soon as Albert was seated, 
Mademoiselle de Watteville selected her own posi- 
tion so that she had an unobstructed view of him 
during all the time Abbé Giroud allowed her. 
When Mariette said: ‘‘There’s Monsieur Giroud,’’ 
it seemed to Rosalie as if it had been but a few 
moments. When she came out of the confessional, 
the mass was at an end and Albert had left the 
church. 

‘‘The vicar-general was right,’’ she thought; ‘‘he 
is suffering! Why did that eagle—for he has an 
eagle’s eyes—swoop down upon Besancon? Oh! 
I must find out everything—And how ?’’ 

Under the impulsion of this new desire, Rosalie 
drew the threads of her embroidery with admirable 
precision, and veiled her meditations behind a de- 
mure air, feigning simplicity so successfully that 


44 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Madame de Watteville was deceived. After the 
Sunday on which Mademoiselle de Watteville re- 
ceived that glance, or if you prefer, that baptism of 
fire—a magnificent expression of Napoléon’s which 
love may make use of—she pushed on the affair of 
the belvedere with great earnestness. 

‘‘Mamma,’’ said she, when there were two col- 
umns all turned, ‘‘father has taken a strange notion 
into his head; he is turning columns for a bel vedere 
he proposes to build, making use of that pile of 
stones in the middle of the garden; do you approve 
of it? For my part, it seems to me that—”’ 

‘‘! approve of whatever your father does,’’ re- 
plied Madame de Watteville dryly, ‘‘and it’s a 
wife’s duty to submit to her husband, even if she 
doesn’t approve of his ideas.—Why should I oppose 
a thing of no consequence in itself, as soon as I find 
that it amuses Monsieur de Watteville?”’ 

‘‘But, from there we can look into Monsieur de 
Soulas’s house, and Monsieur de Soulas can see us 
when we’re there. Perhaps people would talk—’’ 

‘*Do you undertake to guide your parents, Rosalie, 
and to know more than they about life and about 
what is or is not proper ?”’ 

‘‘! have no more to say, mamma. However, 
father says that the grotto will be a room where we 
can go and take our coffee in the open air.’’ 

‘It’s an excellent idea of your father’s,’’ replied 
Madame de Watteville, and she determined to go 
and see the columns. 

She bestowed her approbation upon Baron de 


ALBERT SAVARUS 45 


Watteville’s project, selecting for the location of the 
structure a point at the end of the garden, where 
there was no opportunity to look into Monsieur de 
Soulas’s quarters, but where they had an admirable 
view of the domicile of Monsieur Albert Savaron. 
A contractor was called in, who undertook to con- 
struct a grotto with a little path three feet wide 
leading to the summit; in the crevices between the 
stones periwinkles would grow, and the iris, vibur- 
num, ivy, honeysuckle and creeper. The baroness 
conceived the idea of covering the interior walls of 
the grotto with rustic woodwork then much in vogue 
for jardiniéres, of placing a mirror at one end with 
a covered divan and a marquetry table composed of 
bark. Monsieur de Soulas suggested covering the 
floor with asphalt. Rosalie proposed a chandelier 
in rustic woodwork suspended from the roof. 

‘The Wattevilles are putting up a fascinating 
little thing in their garden,’’ people said in Be- 
sancon. 

“‘They are rich, they can afford to spend a thou- 
sand crowns for a whim.”’ 

‘*A thousand crowns?’’—said Madame de Cha- 
voncourt. 

“‘Yes, a thousand crowns,’’ cried young Monsieur 
de Soulas. ‘‘They have sent for a man from Paris 
to do the interior rustic work, and it will be very 
pretty. Monsieur de Watteville makes the chan- 
delier, and he’s beginning to carve the wood—’’ 

‘“‘They say Berquet’s going to dig a cellar,’’ said 
an abbé. 


46 ALBERT SAVARUS 


‘‘No,’”’ replied Monsieur de Soulas, ‘‘he is to set 
the kiosk on a foundation of solid masonry, so that 
there may be no dampness.”’ 

“You know every little thing that goes on in that 
house,’? said Madame de Chavoncourt sourly, 
glancing at her three tall daughters, all of marriage- 
able age for a year past. 

Mademoiselle de Watteville, who had some slight 
feeling of pride as she thought of the success of her 
belvedere, reached the conclusion that she was emi- 
nently superior to all those about her. No one 
imagined that a slip of a girl, supposed to have no 
mind of her own and to be almost an idiot, had 
simply determined to see the advocate Savaron’s 
office at shorter range. 


* 


Albert Savaron’s brilliant argument in behalf of 
the Cathedral Chapter was the more speedily for- 
gotten in that the jealousy of the other advocates 
was aroused. Moreover, Savaron was faithful to 
his purpose of living in retirement—and was seen 
nowhere. As he had no trumpeters and saw no one, 
he increased his chance of being forgotten, a chance 
which is sufficiently great for any stranger, in a city 
like Besancon. Nevertheless, he pleaded three 
times before the Tribunal of Commerce in three 
complicated cases which were destined to go up to 
the royal court. His clients were four substantial 
merchants of the city, who discovered in him such a 
fund of common sense and of what is called in the 
provinces judicial instinct, that they entrusted their 
affairs in litigation to him. On the day when the 
Watteville family dedicated their belvedere, Savaron 
likewise reared his monument. Thanks to his 
secret relations with the leading commercial houses 
of Besancon, he founded a fortnightly review called 
the Revue de l'Est, with a capital of forty shares of 
five hundred francs each, placed in the hands of his 
first ten clients, upon whom he urged the necessity 
of assisting to guide the destinies of Besancon, the 
city which should be the trading centre between 
Milhausen and Lyons, the most important point be- 
tween the Rhine and the Rhone. 

(47) 


48 ALBERT SAVARUS 


To enter into rivalry with Strasburg, should not 
Besancon be a centre of enlightenment as well as a 
commercial centre? Nowhere else than in a review 
could the momentous questions bearing upon the 
interests of the East be properly dealt with. What 
a glorious thing it would be to wrest from Strasburg 
and Dijon their literary influence, to spread en- 
lightenment through the East of France and contend 
against Parisian centralization! These arguments, 
supplied by Albert, were echoed by the ten mer- 
chants, who gave themselves credit for them. 

Savaron the advocate did not make the mistake of 
putting his own name forward; he left the financial 
management in the hands of his first client, Mon- 
sieur Boucher, who was connected by marriage 
with one of the leading publishers of important ec- 
clesiastical works; but he reserved the editorship 
for himself, with a share in the profits as one of the 
founders. The business interests issued an appeal 
at Déle, Dijon, Salins, Neufchatel, the Jura, Bourg, 
Nantua, Lons-le-Saunier. They demanded the co- 
operation of the knowledge and efforts of all thought- 
ful men in the three provinces of Bugey, Besse and 
Franche-Comté. Thanks to the business connec- 
tions and social relations of the founders, a hundred 
and fifty subscriptions were taken, some credit 
being due to the low subscription price: the Revue 
cost eight francs per quarter. To avoid wounding 
the provincial self-esteem by declining contributed 
articles, the advocate was clever enough to awaken 
an ambition to undertake the literary editorship of 


ALBERT SAVARUS 49 


the Revue in the breast of Monsieur Boucher’s eldest 
son, a young man of twenty-two, thirsty for renown, 
to whom the pitfalls and vexations of literary man- 
agement were entirely unknown. Albert secretly 
retained control and made of Alfred Boucher his 
fanatical adherent. Alfred was the only person in 
Besancon with whom the king of the bar fraternized. 
Alfred came in the morning to confer with Albert in 
the garden concerning the details of the next num- 
ber. It is needless to say that the initial number 
contained a Meditation by Alfred, which received 
Savaron’s approval. In his conversation with 
Alfred, Albert let fall grand ideas, subjects for arti- 
cles of which young Boucher was not slow to avail 
himself. So the merchant’s son believed that he 
was making use of the great man! In Alfred’s eyes, 
Albert was a man of genius, a profound politician. 
The merchants were delighted with the success of 
the Revue, for they had to pay up only three-tenths 
of the value of their shares. Two hundred sub- 
scribers more and the Revue would pay a dividend 
of five per cent to its shareholders; the editing not 
being paid for. Indeed the editing was beyond 
price. When the third number was issued the 
Revue had made arrangements for exchanging with 
all the newspapers in France, which Albert read at 
home. This third number contained a novel signed 
A. S., and attributed to the famous advocate. 
Although the first society of Besancon condescended 
to take but little notice of the Revue, which was 
accused of liberalism, this first novel that had ever 
4 


50 ALBERT SAVARUS 


blossomed in the Comté was the subject of discussion 
at Madame de Chavoncourt’s in the middle of the 
winter. 

“‘Father,’’ said Rosalie, ‘‘there’s a review pub- 
lished here in Besancon; you must subscribe for it 
and keep it in your own rooms, for mamma wouldn’t 
let me read it; but you will lend it to me.”’ 

Eager to obey his dear Rosalie, who had been 
lavish of proofs of her affection for him for five 
months past, Monsieur de Watteville went himself 
to subscribe to the Revue de l’Est for a year, and 
loaned his daughter the four numbers that had ap- 
peared. During the night Rosalie was at liberty to 
devour the novel, the first she had ever read in her 
life; but she had not known what it was to live 
until the last two months! We must not therefore 
judge the effect this work was likely to produce 
upon her, by ordinary rules. Entirely aside from 
the question of the greater or less merit of this com- 
position, the work of a Parisian who brought with 
him into the province the manner, the brilliancy, if 
you choose, of the new literary school, it could not 
fail to be a masterpiece in the eyes of a young 
woman devoting her virgin intelligence, her pure 
heart, to a work of this sort for the firsttime. More- 
over, from what she had heard of the book Rosalie 
had, by intuition, formed an idea of her own regard- 
ing it, which increased its value to a remarkable 
degree. She hoped to find therein the sentiments 
and perhaps something of the life of Albert. From 
the very first page this idea became so firmly fixed 


ALBERT SAVARUS SI 


in her mind, that when she had read the fragment 
through, she felt sure that she was not mistaken. 
We insert here this confidential production, wherein, 
according to the critics of the Chavoncourt salon, 
Albert copied some modern writers, who through 
lack of the inventive faculty, describe their own 
joys, their own sorrows or the mysterious occurrences 
of their own lives: 


AMBITIONS THROUGH LOVE. 


In 1823, two young men, who had agreed to take 
a ramble through Switzerland in company, set out 
from Lucerne one fine morning in July, in a boat 
propelled by three rowers, and started for Fluelen, 
proposing to stop at all the famous places on the 
Lake of Lucerne. The landscapes which border the 
lake from Lucerne to Fluelen present all the com- 
binations the most exacting imagination can demand 
of mountains and rivers, lakes and cliffs, streams 
and verdure, trees and mountain torrents. There 
is a succession of frowning solitudes and graceful 
headlands, fresh and smiling valleys, forests perched 
like plumes on the summit of perpendicular cliffs, 
cool, solitary bays that open before one, valleys 
whose treasures are embellished by the uncertain 
distance. 

As they passed the charming little village of Ger- 
sau, one of the two friends gazed long at a wooden 
house, apparently of recent construction, surrounded 
by a fence, situated on a headland and almost 


52 ALBERT SAVARUS 


bathed by the water beneath. As the boat passed, 
a woman’s head appeared in a room on the upper 
floor of the house, to enjoy the effect of the boat 
upon the water. One of the young men received 
the glance directed at him with utter indifference 
by the unknown. 

‘‘Let us stop here,’’ he said to his friend; ‘‘we 
intended to make Lucerne our headquarters while 
we are in Switzerland, but you won’t take it amiss, 
Léopold, if 1 change my opinion and stay here to 
look after the cloaks. You can do whatever you 
please; for my part, my journey’s at an end. Pull 
ashore, boys, and set us down at this village; we’re 
going to have luncheon here. I’ll go and senda 
messenger to Lucerne for all our luggage, and you 
shall know before you go what house | shall take 
up my quarters in, so that you can find me when 
you return.”’ 

‘Between this and Lucerne,’’ said Léopold, 
‘**there’s not enough difference for me to interfere 
with your gratifying a whim.’’ 

These two young men were friends in the truest 
acceptation of the word. They were of the same 
age, they had pursued their studies at the same col- 
lege; and, having finished their legal studies, they 
were passing their vacation in the classic tour 
through Switzerland. As the result of a desire on 
his father’s part, Léopold was already engaged to 
enter the office of a notary in Paris. His sense of 
rectitude, his gentle disposition, the inexcitability 
of his emotions and his intelligence guaranteed his 


ALBERT SAVARUS 53 


docility. Léopold looked forward to being a notary 
of Paris: his life lay before him like one of the 
broad roads which traverse a level tract of France; 
he surveyed it in all its extent with philosophical 
resignation. 

The character of his companion, whom we will 
call Rodolphe, presented a striking contrast to his, 
and the result of this antagonism had doubtless been 
to draw still tighter the bond that united them. 
Rodolphe was the natural son of a great nobleman, 
who died suddenly and prematurely before he had 
an opportunity to provide the means of subsistence 
for a woman whom he loved dearly and for Rodolphe. 
Thus betrayed by a caprice of fate, Rodolphe’s 
mother had recourse to an heroic expedient. She 
sold everything that she owed to the generosity of 
her child’s father, got together something over a 
hundred thousand francs, purchased with it an an- 
nuity for her own life at a high rate of interest, and 
in this way procured an income of about fifteen 
thousand francs, resolving to sacrifice everything to 
her son’s education in order to provide him with the 
personal advantages best adapted to assist him in 
making his fortune, and by strict economy to lay by 
a little capital for him when he attained his majority. 
It was a bold step, it was making everything depend 
upon her own life; but, if she had been less bold, it 
would have been impossible without doubt for the 
good mother to live, and to provide a proper educa- 
tion for her child, her only hope, her future and her 
only source of happiness. Born of one of the most 


54 ALBERT SAVARUS 


fascinating of Parisian women, and of a noteworthy 
figure in the aristocracy of Brabant, the fruit of an 
ardent, mutual passion, Rodolphe was afflicted with . 
extreme sensitiveness. From his infancy he had 
exhibited the greatest ardor in everything. 

In him, desire became an overpowering force, the 
motive power of his whole being, a stimulant to his 
imagination, the basis of all his acts. Despite the 
efforts of an intelligent mother, who took alarm the 
moment she observed this predisposition, Rodolphe 
desired this or that as a poet exercises his imagin- 
ation, as a scholar reasons, as a painter draws, as a 
musician sketches the outline of a melody. As 
affectionate as his mother, in his thoughts he darted 
in pursuit of the desired object with incredible ve- 
hemence; he annihilated time. When dreaming of 
the accomplishment of his projects he always sup- 
pressed the means of execution. 

‘*If my son has children,’’ his mother would say, 
‘*he will want them to be grown-up instantly.’’ 

This praiseworthy ardor, properly guided, assisted 
Rodolphe to go through his college course with great 
brilliancy, and to become what the English calla 
perfect gentleman. His mother was very proud of 
him, therefore, although she was in constant dread 
of some catastrophe if ever passion should take pos- 
session of that heart, at once so tender and so sensi- 
tive, so kind and so violent. For that reason the 
prudent creature had encouraged the friendship that 
bound Léopold to Rodolphe and Rodolphe to Léopold, 
looking upon the unemotional and conscientious 


ALBERT SAVARUS 55 


notary as a mentor, a confidant, who could, to a cer- 
tain extent, fill her place with Rodolphe, if she 
should, by any evil chance, be taken from him. 
Still lovely at forty-three, Rodolphe’s mother had 
inspired the warmest passion in Léopold’s heart. 
This fact served to make the two young men even 
more intimate. 

Léopold, who knew Rodolphe well, was not sur- 
prised to find him stopping short at a village and 
abandoning the projected excursion to the Saint- 
Gothard,—all on account of a glance shot at him 
from a housetop. While their lunch was being 
made ready at the hostelry of Le Cygne, the two 
friends made a circuit of the village, and came 
finally to the neighborhood of the fascinating newly- 
built house, and there Rodolphe, by dint of saunter- 
ing about and talking with the natives, discovered a 
house belonging to a small storekeeper, who was 
inclined to take him in as a boarder, in accordance 
with the prevailing custom in Switzerland. They 
offered him a room looking on the lake and the 
mountains, which commanded a magnificent view of 
one of the marvelous panoramas that commend the 
Lake of the Forest Cantons to the admiration of 
tourists. This house was separated bya street and 
a small gate from the new house where Rodolphe 
had caught a glimpse of his fair unknown’s face. 

For a hundred francs a month, Rodolphe was re- 
lieved of the necessity of providing the necessaries 
of life. But, in consideration of the expense that 
the Stopfers expected to incur, they demanded 


56 ALBERT SAVARUS 


payment for the third month in advance. —Scratch 
a Swiss ever so little and you find a usurer.—After 
lunch Rodolphe immediately took possession by 
depositing in his room all that he had brought in the 
way of luggage for his excursion to the Saint-Go- 
thard, and watched the departure of Léopold, who, 
impelled by his orderly instinct, proposed to go 
through with the excursion on Rodolphe’s behalf as 
well as his own. When Rodolphe, sitting on a rock 
that had fallen by the water’s edge, could no longer 
see Léopold’s boat, he scrutinized the new house 
out of the corner of his eye, hoping to catch a 
glimpse of the unknown. Alas! he returned to his 
room without having detected a sign of life about 
the house. While he was discussing the dinner 
provided by Monsieur and Madame Stopfer, for- 
merly coopers at Neufchatel, he questioned them 
about the neighborhood, and succeeded in learning 
all that he desired to know concerning the unknown, 
thanks to the garrulity of his hosts, who emptied 
their bag of gossip without waiting to be urged. 
The name of the unknown was Fanny Lovelace. 
This name, which is pronounced Loveless, is borne 
by various old English families, but Richardson has 
created a character by that name, whose celebrity 
casts all others into the shade. Miss Lovelace had 
taken up her abode on the lake for the benefit of her 
father’s health, the doctors having prescribed the 
air of the canton of Lucerne for him. The father 
and daughter, who had no servant save a little girl 
of fourteen, a dumb child who was deeply attached 


ALBERT SAVARUS 57 


to Miss Fanny and served her intelligently, had 
made their arrangements the preceding winter with 
Monsieur and Madame Bergmann, formerly head gar- 
deners to his Excellency Count Borromeo at /sola 
Bella and Isola Madre on Lago Maggiore. These 
Swiss, who had an income of about a thousand 
crowns, let the upper floor of their house to the 
Lovelaces for two hundred francs a year for three 
years. Old Lovelace, a decrepit nonagenarian, too 
poor to indulge in any considerable expense, rarely 
left the house; his daughter supported them by 
translating English books, it was said, and by writ- 
ing books herself. So it was that the Lovelaces did 
not dare to hire boats to row on the lake, or horses 
or guides to visit the points of interest in the neigh- 
borhood. Poverty that demands such sacrifices ex- 
cites the more compassion among the Swiss in that 
they lose thereby an opportunity for profit. The 
cook of the household supplied the three English 
with food for a hundred francs a month, everything 
included. But all Gersau believed that the quon- 
dam gardeners, notwithstanding their pretensions to 
bourgeois rank, shielded themselves behind the 
cook’s name in order to realize the profits of this 
bargain. The Bergmanns had laid out beautiful 
gardens and built a magnificent greenhouse about 
their abode. The flowers and fruits and botanical 
rareties to be found there had guided the young 
lady in her choice of a boarding-place when they 
passed through Gersau. Miss Fanny was nineteen 
years old, they said, and, being the old man’s last 


58 ALBERT SAVARUS 


remaining child, was worshiped by him. Not more 
than two months before, she had succeeded in hiring 
a piano at Lucerne, for she seemed music-mad. 

‘*She loves flowers and music,’’ Rodolphe thought, 
‘fand she is unmarried. What good fortune!’’ 

The next day Rodolphe sent to ask permission to 
visit the greenhouses and gardens, which were be- 
ginning to enjoy some celebrity. This permission 
was not at once granted. The quondam gardeners 
requested, strangely enough, to see Rodolphe’s pass- 
port, and he sent it instantly. The passport was 
not returned to him until the following day, when 
the cook brought it to him and informed him how 
delighted her masters would be to show him their 
establishment. Rodolphe did not go to the Berg- 
mann’s house without a certain internal commotion 
which only people of keen emotions know, who dis- 
play as much passion in a single moment as some 
men expend in their whole lives. Dressed with care, 
in order to make a pleasant impression upon the 
former gardeners of the Borromean Islands, for in 
them he saw only the guardians of his treasure, he 
made the circuit of the gardens, glancing at the 
house from time to time, but with great circumspec- 
tion; the two venerable proprietors were clearly 
suspicious of him. But his attention was soon at- 
tracted by the little dumb English girl, whose 
sagacity, although she was still so young, convinced 
him that she was a child of Africa, or at least a 
Sicilian. The girl had the golden color of an 
Havana cigar, flashing eyes with pupils of turquoise 


ALBERT SAVARUS 59 


blue, and oriental lashes of un-British length, hair 
blacker than jet, and beneath the olive skin, nerves 
of extraordinary strength and feverish vivacity. 
She gazed searchingly at Rodolphe with incredible 
impudence, and followed his slightest movements. 

“To whom does yonder little Moor belong?’’ he 
inquired of worthy Madame Bergmann. 

“‘To the English people,’’ Monsieur Bergmann 
replied. 

‘*But she wasn’t born in England!’’ 

‘*Perhaps they brought her from the Indies, ’’ sug- 
gested Madame Bergmann. 

‘*] was told that young Miss Lovelace is fond of 
music; I should be delighted if she would permit me 
to sing with her during my stay on the lake, having 
been ordered hither by my doctor.’’ 

‘*They don’t receive visitors and don’t care to see 
anyone,’’ said the old gardener. 

Rodolphe bit his lips and went away, without 
having received an invitation to enter the house, 
and without being shown that part of the garden that 
lay between the house front and the edge of the 
headland. On that side there was a wooden bal- 
cony above the first floor, covered by the roof which 
projected an extraordinary distance like the roof of 
a chalet, and which extended around the four sides 
of the building after the Swiss fashion. Rodolphe 
praised this excellent arrangement and talked loudly 
of the view from the balcony, but to no purpose. 
When he had taken his leave of the Bergmanns he 
reviled himself as a blockhead, as every man of 


60 ALBERT SAVARUS 


sense and imagination does when disappointed by 
the failure of a project which he had believed would 
be successful. 

In the evening he naturally went rowing on the 
lake around the headland; he went as far as Briin- 
nen and Schwitz and returned at nightfall. Froma 
distance he saw that the window was open and the 
room brilliantly lighted, and he could hear the sound 
of the piano and the sweet tones of a lovely voice. 
He ordered his rowers to stop that he might abandon 
himself to the bliss of listening to an Italian air, 
divinely sung. When the song was at an end, 
Rodolphe landed and sent away the boat and the two 
boatmen. At the risk of wetting his feet he sat 
down under the wall of granite worn away by the 
action of the water, on the crown of which was a 
thick hedge of prickly acacias, while an avenue of 
young lindens ran along its whole length in the 
Bergmann garden. After about an hour he heard 
footsteps and voices over his head; but the words 
that reached his ear were Italian words and uttered 
by two women’s voices—two young women. He 
seized the opportunity when they were at one end 
to glide along to the other. After struggling for half 
an hour he reached the end of the avenue, and was 
able, without being seen or heard, to take up a posi- 
tion from which he could see the two women with- 
out being seen by them even if they should come 
close up to him. What was Rodolphe’s amazement 
when he recognized in one of the two women the little 
mute! she was talking Italian with Miss Lovelace. 


ALBERT SAVARUS 61 


It was eleven o’clock at night. Everything was 
so quiet on the lake and about the house that 
they might well believe themselves safe from in- 
trusion; in all Gersau there could be no other whose 
eyes were still open. Rodolphe concluded that the 
little one’s dumbness was a necessary stratagem. 
By the way in which both of them spoke Italian he 
knew that it must be their mother tongue ;—he con- 
cluded therefore that their masquerading as English 
also concealed some ruse. 

“‘They’re Italian refugees,’’ he said to himself, 
‘exiles, no doubt, who have reason to fear the 
police of Austria or Sardinia. The young woman 
waits until nightfall when she can walk about and 
talk in perfect safety.’’ 

He immediately lay down at the foot of the-hedge 
and crawled along like a snake to find a passage be- 
tween two acacia roots. At the risk of leaving his 
coat behind him or of inflicting serious wounds on 
his back, he passed through the hedge when the 
pretended Miss Fanny and the pseudo-mute were at 
the other end of the avenue; when they had re- 
turned to within twenty paces of where he was 
without seeing him, for he was crouching in the 
shadow of the hedge upon which the moon shone 
brightly, he suddenly rose. 

‘Don’t be alarmed,’’ he said in French to the 
Italian girl, ‘‘! am not a spy, you are refugees, | 
have guessed your secret. I am a Frenchman 
whom a single glance from your eyes has nailed to 
the soil of Gersau.’’ 


62 ALBERT SAVARUS 


At that moment Rodolphe measured his length 
upon the ground, overcome by the pain caused by 
a sharp instrument piercing his side. 

‘* Nel lago con pietra!’’ exclaimed the terrible mute. 

**Oh! Gina,’’ cried the Italian. 

‘*She missed me,’’ said Rodolphe, drawing from 
the wound a stiletto which had glanced off one of | 
the short ribs; ‘‘but if it had been a little higher it 
would have gone straight to my heart. I was 
wrong, Francesca,’’ he added, remembering the 
name by which little Gina had called her several 
times; ‘‘I bear her no ill-will for it, don’t scold her; 
the happiness of speaking to you is well worth a 
blow from a stiletto! But show me the way out, for 
I must get back to Stopfer’s house. Have no fear, 
I will be silent.’’ 

Francesca, having recovered from her astonish- 
ment, assisted Rodolphe to rise, and said a few 
words to Gina, whose eyes filled with tears. The 
two women forced Rodolphe to sit down on a bench 
and to remove his coat, waistcoatandcravat. Gina 
opened his shirt and sucked the wound vigorously. 
Francesca, who had left them for a moment, re- 
turned with a large piece of English taffeta and 
placed it over the wound. 

‘*You can go as far as your house so,’”’ she said. 

Each of them took one of Rodolphe’s arms, and 
led him to a small gate, the key of which was in the 
pocket of Francesca’s apron. 

“(Does Gina speak French?’’ Rodolphe asked 
Francesca. 


ALBERT SAVARUS 63 


**No. But don’t you excite yourself,’’ she re- 
plied with a touch of impatience. 

‘*Let me look at you,’’ said Rodolphe with emo- 
tion, ‘‘for it may be a long time before | shall be 
able to come—”’ 

He leaned against one of the posts of the little 
gate and gazed at the fair Italian, who submitted to 
his scrutiny for an instant amid the sweetest silence 
and in the loveliest moonlight that ever shone upon 
that lake,—the king of all Swiss lakes. Francesca 
was of the classic Italian type and beautiful as the 
imagination would have all Italian women, or pic- 
tures them or dreams of them, if you choose. The 
thing that impressed Rodolphe at first glance was 
the refined and graceful outline of her figure, which 
revealed its strength despite her frail appearance, 
she was so lithe and supple. The amber pallor of 
her cheeks betrayed her suddenly awakened inter- 
est, but did not veil the voluptuous glance of two 
moist, velvety-black eyes. Two hands, the love- 
liest that Greek sculptor ever attached to the 
polished arms of a statue, held Rodolphe’s arm, and 
their whiteness was in striking contrast to the black 
sleeve of his coat. The imprudent Frenchman could 
see but vaguely the somewhat long, oval-shaped 
face, and the mouth sad and slightly parted which 
disclosed teeth of dazzling whiteness between two 
fresh, ruby lips. The beauty of the lines of her face 
assured Francesca of the lasting quality of her mag- 
nificent loveliness; but the thing that most im- 
pressed Rodolphe was the adorable ease of manner, 


64 ALBERT SAVARUS 


the Italian frankness of this woman, who abandoned 
herself unreservedly to her compassion. 

Francesca said a word to Gina, who gave Rodolphe 
her arm to lean upon as far as the Stopfer house, and 
ran away like a swallow when she had rung the bell. 

‘‘These patriots don’t go empty-handed!’’ said 
Rodolphe to himself, keenly alive to his suffering 
when he was alone in his bed. ‘‘ Nel lago! Gina 
would have tossed me into the lake with a stone 
around my neck.’”’ 

At daybreak he sent to Lucerne for the most skil- 
ful surgeon there; and when he arrived Rodolphe 
enjoined profound secrecy upon him, giving him to 
understand that honor demanded it. Léopold re- 
turned from his excursion on the day that his friend 
left his bed. Rodolphe told him a fairy story and 
sent him to Lucerne to bring the luggage and their 
letters. Léopold brought back the saddest, most 
horrible news; Rodolphe’s mother was dead. While 
the two friends were on the way from Bale to Lu- 
cerne, the fatal letter, written by Léopoid’s father, 
was despatched, and arrived at Lucerne the day of 
their departure for Fluelen. Notwithstanding the 
precautions taken by Léopold, Rodolphe was 
stricken down with a nervous fever. As soon as 
the future notary was sure that his friend was out 
of danger, he started for France, armed with a power 
of attorney. Thus Rodolphe was enabled to remain 
at Gersau, the only spot on earth where his grief 
could be allayed. The plight of the young French- 
man, his despair, and the circumstances that made 


ALBERT SAVARUS 65 


his loss more insupportable to him than to another, 
were known in the village, and attracted the com- 
passion and interest of all Gersau. Every morning 
the pretended mute came to see the Frenchman in 
order to carry her mistress the latest news of his 
condition. 

When Rodolphe was able to go out, he went to 
the Bergmanns to thank Miss Fanny Lovelace and 
her father for the interest they had manifested in 
him. For the first time since he had taken up his 
abode under Bergmann’s roof, the old Italian allowed 
a stranger to enter his apartments, where Rodolphe 
was received with a cordiality attributable both to 
his misfortunes and to the fact that he was a 
Frenchman, which made suspicion impossible. 
Francesca was so beautiful by candle-light that first 
evening, that she caused a ray of light to shine in 
upon that dejected heart. Her smile strewed the 
roses of hope upon his mourning garb. She sang, 
not lively airs, but sublime and lofty melodies ap- 
propriate to the state of Rodolphe’s heart, and he 
did not fail to notice this touching attention. About 
eight o’clock the old man left the two young people 
alone without any apparent apprehension and went 
to his room. When Francesca was tired of singing, 
she took Rodolphe out upon the exterior balcony, 
where the sublime spectacle of the lake was spread 
out before them, and motioned to him to sit down 
beside her on a rustic wooden bench. 

‘Is it impertinent in me to ask your age, cara 
Francesca ?’’ said Rodolphe. 

5 


66 ALBERT SAVARUS 


‘*Nineteen,’’ she replied, ‘‘and a little more.”’ 

“If anything in the world could lighten my grief,’’ 
he continued, ‘‘it would be the hope of obtaining 
your hand from your father; however you may be 
situated as to fortune, you are so lovely that in my 
eyes you appear richer than a prince’s daughter. | 
tremble when | avow the feelings you have awakened 
in me, but they are deeply rooted, they are ever- 
lasting.’’ 

‘*Zittol’’ said Francesca, placing one of the fingers 
of her right hand on his lips. ‘‘Say no more;—I 
am not free, | have been married three years—”’ 

Profound silence reigned between them for a 
few moments. When the Italian, alarmed by 
Rodolphe’s position, drew near to him, she found 
him quite unconscious. 

‘*Povero !’’ she said to herself; ‘‘and!I thought him 
cold—”’ 

She ran to fetch salts and revived Rodolphe by 
making him inhale them. ‘‘Married!’’ he ex- 
claimed, gazing at Francesca. 

Thereupon his tears flowed freely. 

**Child,’’ she said, ‘‘there is hope. My husband 
io? 

**Eighty ??’—-said Rodolphe. 

*‘No,’’ she replied with a smile, ‘‘sixty-five. He 
assumed an old man’s mask to throw the police off 
the scent.’’ 

‘*My dear,’’ said Rodolphe, ‘‘a little more emo- 
tion of this sort andI should die.—Not until you 
have known me twenty years, will you know the 


ALBERT SAVARUS 67 


strength and power of my heart, and the nature of 
its aspirations to happiness. Yonder plant does not 
climb more eagerly to blossom in the sun’s rays,’’ 
he added, pointing to a Virginia jasmine clinging 
to the balcony rail, ‘‘than | have attached myself to 
you during the month just past. I love you witha 
love that has no parallel. That love will be the 
secret principle of life to me, and perhaps | shall die 
of it.’’ 

“Oh! you Frenchmen! you Frenchmen!’’ she 
exclaimed, accentuating her exclamation with a 
little pout of incredulity. 

**Must I not wait for you and receive you from 
the hands of time?’’ he resumed gravely. ‘‘But, 
understand, that if you are sincere in the words that 
just fell from your lips I will wait faithfully for you 
and allow no other sentiment to take root in my 
heart. ”’ 

She glanced slily at him. 

‘*Not one,’’ he continued, ‘‘not even a caprice. I 
have my fortune to make, and you must have a 
magnificent fortune, for nature created you a prin- 
cess—’’ 

At that word, Francesca could not restrain a feeble 
smile which imparted a most enchanting expression 
to her face, a touch of delicate raillery like that 
which the great Leonardo introduced so happily in 
his Gioconda. That smile made Rodolphe pause. 

—‘‘Yes,’’ he resumed, “‘you must suffer in the 
state of destitution to which exile has reduced you. 
Ah! if you choose to make me the happiest of men 


68 ALBERT SAVARUS 


and sanctify my love, you will treat me as a friend. 
May I not be your friend too? My poor mother left 
me sixty thousand francs that she had saved—take 
half of it!’’ 

Francesca gazed earnestly into his face. Her 
penetrating gaze went to the very bottom of 
Rodolphe’s heart. 

‘*We need nothing, my work suffices for our lux- 
urious mode of life,’’ she replied gravely. 

“Can I allow a Francesca to work?’ he cried. 
**Some day you will return to your own country, and 
you will find there all that you left behind you—’’ 
Again the young Italian looked at Rodolphe. —‘‘ And 
you can then return what you have deigned to bor- 
row from me,’’ he added, looking up into her face 
with the utmost delicacy. 

*‘Let us drop this subject of conversation,’’ said 
she, with incomparable nobility of gesture, of ex- 
pression and of attitude. ‘‘Make a brilliant name 
for yourself, be one of the eminent men of your 
country; it is my wish. Celebrity is a sort of fly- 
ing-bridge that may help one across a chasm. Be 
ambitious; you must. I believe that you possess 
eminent and powerful talents; but use them for the 
welfare of mankind rather than to earn my love; 
you will be the greater in my eyes.”’ 

In this conversation, which lasted two hours, 
Rodolphe discovered in Francesca the enthusiasm 
born of liberal ideas, and that devotion to liberty 
which had caused the triple revolution of Naples, 
Piedmont and Spain. When he left the house he 


ALBERT SAVARUS 69 


was escorted to the door by Gina, the false mute. 
At eleven o’clock no one was prowling about in the 
village, and there were no eavesdroppers to be 
feared; Rodolphe drew Gina into a corner and said 
to her beneath his breath, in wretched Italian: 

‘Who are your masters, my child? Tell me and 
I’ll give you this new gold-piece.”’ 

‘*Monsieur,’’ replied the child taking the money, 
‘fis the famous bookseller Lamporani, of Milan, one 
of the leaders of the revolution and the conspirator 
whom Austria is most anxious to have in the Spiel- 
berg.”’ 

‘*A bookseller’s wife !—Aha! so much the better, ”’ 
thought he, ‘‘we’re on the same level.—Of what 
family is she?’ he continued aloud; ‘‘she has the 
bearing of a queen.”’ 

“So have all Italian women,’’ replied Gina 
proudly. ‘‘Her father’s name is Colonna.’’ 

Emboldened by Francesca’s humble condition in 
life, Rodolphe ordered an awning spread over his 
boat, and placed cushions in the _ stern-sheets. 
When this change was effected, the amorous youth 
proposed to Francesca to go with him upon the lake. 
The Italian accepted the invitation, doubtless in 
order to continue to play her part as a young miss 
in the eyes of the village; but she took Gina. 
Francesca Colonna’s slightest actions gave evidence 
of a superior education and the highest social rank. 
By the way in which the fair Italian sat at the stern 
of the boat, Rodolphe felt in some sense separated 
from her ; and before the manifestation of the genuine 


7O ALBERT SAVARUS 


pride of noble birth, his premeditated familiarity 
fell to the ground. Bya glance Francesca trans- 
formed herself into a princess with all the privileges 
she would have enjoyed in the Middle Ages. She 
seemed to have divined the secret thoughts of this 
vassal who had the audacity to constitute himself 
her protector. Even in the furnishing of the salon 
in which Francesca had received him, in her toilette 
and the little things she used, Rodolphe had de- 
tected indications of a lofty nature and exalted 
rank. All these observations rushed back into his 
mind at the same moment, and he fell a-musing, 
after he had been, so to speak, trodden under foot by 
Francesca’s dignity. Even Gina, her confidante, 
hardly more than a child, seemed to wear a mask of 
mockery as she glanced at Rodolphe out of the 
corner of her eye. This evident incongruity between 
the Italian’s condition and her manners was a new 
enigma to Rodolphe, who suspected some other ruse 
like Gina’s pretended dumbness. 

‘*‘Where would you like to go, Signora Lampo- 
rani ?’’ he asked. 

‘Toward Lucerne,’’ Francesca replied in French. 

**Good!’’ thought Rodolphe, ‘‘she isn’t surprised 
to hear me call her by her name, so she had antici- 
pated my question to Gina, the sly creature !|—’’ 

‘‘What have you against me?’’ he said, sitting 
down at last beside her and with a gesture asking 
for her hand, which Francesca drew away. ‘‘You 
are cold and ceremonious; in familiar style we 
should say forbidding.’’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 7 


**True,’’ she replied with a smile. ‘‘I am wrong. 
It isn’t right. It’s vulgar. You would say in 
French: it’s not artistic. It’s much better to have 
an explanation than to cherish hostile or unkind 
thoughts against a friend, and you have already 
proved your friendship. Perhaps I have gone too 
far with you. You must have taken me for a very 
ordinary woman—”’ 

Rodolphe multiplied gestures of denial. 

—‘‘Yes,’’ continued the bookseller’s wife, paying 
no heed to this pantomime, which she saw perfectly 
well however. ‘‘I noticed it, and naturally | came 
to my senses. Well, | will put an end to it all by a 
few words of profound truth. Understand this, 
Rodolphe; | feel that 1 have strength to stifle a sen- 
timent which would be out of harmony with the 
ideas or the prescience I have of genuine love. | 
can love as we in Italy know how to love; but I 
know my duty; no excess of feeling can make me 
forget it. Married without my consent to this poor 
old man, I might avail myself of the liberty he so gen- 
erously accords me; but three years of marriage are 
equivalent to full acceptance of the conjugal law. 
And so the most violent passion would not tempt 
me to manifest, even involuntarily, a desire to be 
free. Emilio knows my character. He knows that, 
outside of my heart which belongs to myself and 
which I can place where I please, | would not 
descend so far as to allow anyone to take my hand, 
and that is why! have just refused to allow you 
to do it. I want to be loved, to be waited for 


72 ALBERT SAVARUS 


faithfully, with ardor and nobility of soul, as | am 
unable to bestow anything more than infinite tender- 
ness, whose expression will never pass the bound- 
aries of the heart, the territory where it may exist. 
When all this is thoroughly understood—why !’’ she 
continued, tossing her head like a young girl, “‘I 
will be a flirt once more, laughing and giddy, like a 
child who knows nothing of the danger of famil- 
iarity.’’ 

This explicit, outspoken declaration was delivered 
in a tone and accent accompanied with an expression 
of the face that conveyed a most profound impres- 
sion of its truth. 

‘**A Princess Colonna would not have spoken more 
eloquently,’’ said Rodolphe with a smile. 

‘‘Is that a reflection upon my humble birth ?’’ she 
replied haughtily. ‘‘Does your love require an 
armorial crest? At Milan the noblest names,— 
Sforza, Canova, Visconti, Trivulzio, Ursini,—are 
written over shop-doors; there are Archintos there 
who are druggists; but I beg you to believe that, 
although I was born to the station of shopkeeper, | 
have the feelings of a duchess. ’’ 

‘*A reflection? No, madame, I intended to speak 
of you in terms of praise—’’ 

“‘By drawing a comparison ?’’—-said she, slily. 

**Ah!’’ he replied, ‘‘in order that you may torture 
me no more, if my words fail to express my senti- 
ments, know once for all that my love is absolute 
and carries with it unbounded obedience and re- 
spect.’’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 73 


She bowed her head as if content, and said: 

“In that case, monsieur accepts my conditions ?”’ 

“*Yes,’’? said he. ‘‘l understand that the faculty 
of loving could never be lost to such a powerful and 
richly endowed organization, and that, from motives 
of delicacy you choose to hold it in check. Ah! 
Francesca, to know at my age that my affection is 
requited by a woman so sublime, so royally beauti- 
ful as you are, is to attain the fulfilment of all my 
wishes. Is it not enough to keep a young man from 
all evil courses, to love you as you wish to be loved? 
is it not a means of employing his strength ina 
noble passion of which he can be proud hereafter, 
and which leaves none but pleasant memories ?—If 
you knew with what beautiful colors, with what 
poetic thoughts you have clothed the mountain chain 
of Pilatus and the Rigi, and this superb sheet of 
water—”’ 

**I would like to know,’’ said she, with the art- 
lessness of an Italian which always covers a little 
finesse. 

‘Ah! well, this hour will shed light over my whole 
life, like a diamond on a queen’s brow.”’ 

Francesca’s only reply was to place her hand upon 
Rodolphe’s. 

“‘O my darling, dear to me forever, tell me, have 
you never loved?’ he asked. 

“*Never !?? . 

“And you will permit me to love you with a noble 
love, awaiting the fulfilment of my hopes from 
heaven ?”’ 


74 ALBERT SAVARUS 


She bent her head graciously. Two great tears 
rolled down Rodolphe’s cheeks. 

‘*Well, well, what’s the matter ?’’ said she, laying 
aside her réle of empress. 

“Il have no longer a mother to tell her how happy 
I am; she left the world without seeing what would 
have soothed her suffering—”’ 

‘‘What is that ?’’ she asked. 

‘Her affection replaced by an affection of equal 
strength. ’’ 

** Povero mio!’’ cried the Italian, deeply moved. 
“It isa very sweet thing, believe me,’’ she continued 
after a pause, ‘‘and a very important element of a 
woman’s fidelity to know that she is everything on 
earth to the man she loves, to see him entirely alone, 
without family, with nothing in his heart save her 
love,—in short, to have him absolutely to herself.’’ 

When two lovers understand each other thus, the 
heart experiences a delicious sense of peace, a sub- 
lime tranquillity. Certainty is the basis that all 
human sentiments require, for it is never lacking to 
the religious sentiment; man is always certain of 
being well paid by God. Love never feels secure 
except when it bears this likeness to the divine love. 
Therefore one must have experienced to their fullest 
extent the pleasures of that moment, never occurring 
twice in one man’s life, in order to appreciate them: 
that moment no more returns than the emotions of 
’ youth return. To have faith in a woman, to make 
of her one’s human religion, the guiding principle 
of one’s life, the hidden light of one’s slightest 


Pd 


os 


ALBERT SAVARUS 75 


thoughts !—is it not a second birth? A young man 
at such times mingles with his love a little of the 
love he bears his mother. Rodolphe and Francesca 
preserved absolute silence for some time, answering 
each other by affectionate, thought-laden glances. 
They understood each other there in the midst of 
one of nature’s fairest spectacles, whose magnifi- 
cence, interpreted by their swelling hearts, assisted 
them to engrave upon their memories the most fleet- 
ing impressions of that unique hour. There was 
not the slightest trace of coquetry in Francesca’s 
conduct. All was frank and open and unequivocal. 
This grandeur of soul made a deep impression upon 
Rodolphe, who recognized therein the distinction 
between the Italian woman and the French woman. 
The water, the sky, the earth, the woman, every- 
thing was grand yet sweet, even their love, in the 
midst of that panorama, vast in its extent, rich in 
its details, wherein the sharp snow-covered peaks, 
their rigid outlines clearly defined against the dark 
sky, reminded Rodolphe of the conditions in which 
his happiness was to be imprisoned; a fertile 
country surrounded by snow. 

This beatific dream of the heart was soon to be 
disturbed. A boat came from the direction of 
Lucerne; Gina, who had been watching it atten- 
tively for some time, made a joyful gesture, re- 
maining true to her réle of dumb girl. The boat 
drew near and when Francesca could distinguish the 
faces of its occupants, she cried out to one of them, 
a young man: 


a 


76 ALBERT SAVARUS 


**Tito!’’ 

She stood up in the boat at the risk of drowning 
herself, and shouted: ‘‘Tito! Tito!’’ waving her 
handkerchief wildly. 

Tito ordered his boatmen to back water, and the 
two boats drew up alongside each other. The Ital- 
ians talked together with such rapidity of utterance, 
in a dialect altogether unfamiliar to a man who 
hardly knew Italian as it is found in books and had 
never been to Italy, that Rodolphe could neither un- 
derstand nor guess at the drift of their conversation. 
Tito’s beauty, Francesca’s familiar manner, Gina’s 
joyful expression, all combined to vex him. Indeed 
there never was a lover who would not be in bad 
humor to find that he was neglected for any- 
one else in the world. Tito hastily tossed a little 
leather bag, filled with gold no doubt, to Gina, 
and a package of letters to Francesca, who at 
once began to read them, waving a farewell to 
Tito. 

‘‘Return at once to Gersau,’’ she said to the boat- 
men. ‘‘I mustn’t leave my poor Emilio in suspense 
ten minutes longer than is necessary.’’ 

‘*What has happened ?’’ asked Rodolphe, when he 
saw that the Italian had finished her last letter. 

“Liberty !’’ she cried, with the enthusiasm of an 
artist. 

‘‘And money!’’ echoed Gina, finding her tongue 
at last. 

**Yes,’’? continued Francesca, ‘‘no more poverty 
for us. For more than eleven months now I have 


ALBERT SAVARUS 77 


been working, and I am beginning to be weary. 
Most decidedly I am not a literary woman.”’ 

‘‘Who is this Tito ?’’ asked Rodolphe. 

“‘The Secretary of State for the financial depart- 
ment of the poor Colonna establishment, otherwise 
called the son of our ragyionato. Poor boy! he 
couldn’t come by the St. Gothard, or by Mont 
Cenis, or by the Simplon: he came by sea, by Mar- 
seilles; he has had to travel across France. How- 
ever, in three weeks we shall be in Geneva, and 
there we can live in comfort. Come, come, 
Rodolphe,’’ observing the melancholy expression 
upon the Parisian’s face, ‘‘isn’t the Lake of Geneva 
as pleasant as the Lake of the Four Cantons ?’’ 

‘‘Permit me to spare one regret for that delight- 
ful Bergmann abode,’’ said Rodolphe, pointing to- 
ward the headland. 

“*You must come and dine with us to add to your 
stock of memories, povero mio,’’ said she. ‘‘To- 
day is a holiday, for we are no longer in danger. 
My mother tells me that, within a year perhaps, we 
shall be amnestied. Oh! /a cara patria !—’’ 

These three words brought tears to Gina’s eyes. 

‘*Another winter in this place and I should die!’’ 
said she. 

‘*Poor little Sicilian kid!’’ said Francesca, pass- 
ing her hand over Gina’s head with an affectionate 
gesture that made Rodolphe long to be caressed in 
the same way, even though there was no love in 
the action. 

The boat reached the shore, Rodolphe leaped out 


78 ALBERT SAVARUS 


upon the beach, put out his hand to assist the 
Italian, escorted her to the door of the Bergmann 
house, and went home to dress in order to return as 
soon as possible. 

Finding the bookseller and his wife sitting on the 
outer gallery, Rodolphe could hardly keep back a 
gesture of amazement at the prodigious change the 
good news had wrought in the nonagenarian’s ap- 
pearance. He saw before him a man of about sixty 
years, perfectly preserved, a tall, thin Italian, 
straight as an I, with hair still black, albeit some- 
what thin and affording glimpses of a skull white as 
ivory, bright eyes, a full complement of white 
teeth, a face like Czsar’s, and a_ half-sardonic 
smile playing about his mouth—the almost insincere 
smile beneath which the companionable man con- 
ceals his real sentiments. 

‘*Here is my husband in his natural guise,’’ said 
Francesca gravely. 

‘*It’s like making an entirely new acquaintance,”’ 
rejoined Rodolphe, taken aback by the transforma- 
tion. 

‘Even so,’’ said the bookseller. ‘‘Il have acted 
in my day, and know how to play the old man to 
perfection. Ah! I acted at Paris in the days of the 
Empire with Bourrienne, Madame Murat, Madame 
d’Abrantés, e tutti quanti. Whatever one has taken 
the trouble to learn in his youth, even trivial things, 
is likely to be of use some time. If my wife hadn’t 
received a man’s education, a thing frowned upon 
in Italy, I should have had to turn woodman to make 


ALBERT SAVARUS 79 


a living here. Povera Francesca! who would have 
thought that the day would come when she would 
support me?’’ 

As he listened to this dignified bookseller, so per- 
fectly at ease, so affable and so strong, Rodolphe 
believed that there was some mystery behind it all, 
and maintained the watchful silence of the man who 
has been once deceived. 

“* Che avete, signor?’’ Francesca naively asked. 
*‘Does our happiness make you sad?’ 

**Your husband is a young man,”’ he whispered in 
her ear. 

She burst into a hearty laugh, so spontaneous, so 
contagious, that Rodolphe was more embarrassed 
than ever. 

‘*He has only sixty-five years to offer you,’’ said 
she; ‘‘but I assure you that there is something— 
consoling, even in that fact.’’ 

“1 don’t like to hear you joking about a passion 
as holy as that of which you yourself established the 
conditions. ”’ 

‘*Zitto!’’ she exclaimed, tapping the floor with 
her foot, and looking to see if her husband was 
listening. ‘‘Never do anything to disturb that 
dear man’s peace of mind, for he is as innocent as a 
child and I do what I please with him. He is under 
my protection,’’ she added. ‘‘If you knew with 
what noble generosity he risked his life and his for- 
tune because | was a Liberal! for he does not share 
my political opinions. Do you call that love, Mon- 
sieur le Francais?—But that’s the way with the 


80 ALBERT SAVARUS 


whole family. Emilio’s younger brother was 
thrown over by the woman he loved, in favor of a 
fascinating young man. He ran his sword through 
his heart, but ten minutes before he did it he said 
to his valet: ‘I would like to kill my rival, but it 
would grieve /a diva too deeply.’ ”’ 

This combination of nobility and jesting, of 
grandeur and childishness, made Francesca at that 
moment the most bewitching creature on earth. The 
dinner, as well as the evening that followed it, was 
attended by an overflow of spirits which the deliv- 
erance of the two refugees justified, but which made 
Rodolphe sad. 

“‘Can she be fickle?’’ he said to himself as he re- 
turned to his rooms in the Stopfer house. ‘‘She 
shared my grief, but I do not espouse her joy.’’ 

He reproved himself and justified the conduct of 
the girl-woman. 

**She is entirely free from hypocrisy, she yields 
to her impulses,’’ he saidtohimself. ‘‘And I would 
have her like a Parisian woman!’’ 

The next day and the following days—for three 
weeks, in fact—Rodolphe passed all his time at the 
Bergmann house, watching Francesca without any 
previously formed plan to watch her. Admiration, 
in certain hearts, is accompanied with a sort of 
power of penetration. The young Frenchman 
recognized in Francesca a thoughtless girl, a gen- 
uine type of the woman as yet unsubdued, at times 
struggling with her love, and at other times self- 
complacently yielding to it. The old man bore 


—_— ee Uv 


ALBERT SAVARUS 81 


himself toward her as a father toward his daughter, 


and Francesca manifested a heartfelt gratitude to 
him which revealed the instinctive nobility of her 
character. The situation of affairs and the woman 
presented an insoluble enigma to Rodolphe, but one 
which he became more and more intent upon solving. 

These last days were filled with secret fétes, 
interspersed with fits of melancholy, rebellions, dis- 
putes more enchanting than the hours when nothing 
marred their perfect understanding. He yielded 
more and more to the naive charm of this unreason- 
ing affection, so like herself in every point—this 
affection that was jealous of a mere nothing— 
already ! 

*“You are fond of luxury!’’ he said to Francesca 
one evening as she was speaking of her wish to 
leave Gersau, where she was obliged to do without 
many things. 

**T!?? saidshe; ‘‘I love luxury as I love the arts, as 
I love one of Raphael’s paintings, or a handsome 
horse, or a lovely day, or the Bay of Naples.— 
Emilio,’’ she added, ‘‘did I complain during our 
days of poverty here ?”’ 

**You wouldn’t have been yourself if you had,’’ 
said the old bookseller gravely. 

‘After all isn’t it natural for tradespeople to be 
ambitious of grandeur ?”’? she continued with a mis- 
chievous glance at Rodolphe and her husband. 
‘‘Are my feet,’’ she said, putting forward two lovely 
little feet, ‘‘made for fatigue? Are my hands—”’ 
she held out one hand to Rodolphe—‘‘are these 

6 


82 ALBERT SAVARUS 


hands made to work ?—Leave us,’’ she said to her 
husband; ‘‘I have something to say to him.”’ 

The old man with sublime good nature returned to 
the salon; he was sure of his wife. 

‘*] prefer that you should not go with us to Ge- 
neva,’’ said she to Rodolphe. ‘‘Geneva is a city of 
gossips. Although I am far above the idiotic prattle 
of the world, I do not wish to be slandered,—not for 
my own Sake, but for fis. It is my pride to be the 
glory of that old man, who is, after all, my only 
protector. We are going soon; do you remain here 
a few days. When you come to Geneva, see my 
husband first, let him present you to me. Let us 
conceal our profound and unalterable affection from 
the eyes of the world. I love you, and you know 
it; but this is how I will prove it to you; you will 
discover nothing whatever in my conduct that can 
arouse your jealousy.’’ 

She led him to the end of the gallery, took his 
head in her hands, kissed him on the forehead and 
ran away, leaving him speechless. 

The next day, Rodolphe learned that the Berg- 
manns’ guests had taken their leave at daybreak. 
The thought of living at Gersau was insupportable 
to him thenceforth, and he started for Vevay by the 
longest route, traveling more quickly than he 
should have done; and, irresistibly attracted by the 
waters of the lake where the fair Italian awaited 
him, he reached Geneva at last toward the end of 
October. . To avoid the inconvenience of living in 
the city, he took lodgings in a house at Eaux-Vives, 


ALBERT SAVARUS 83 


outside the fortifications. He was no sooner in- 
stalled in his new quarters than he sent for his host, 
a former jeweler, and asked him if certain Italian 
refugees, from Milan, had not recently taken up 
their abode in Geneva. 

‘Not that I know of,’’ was the reply, ‘‘Prince 
and Princess Colonna of Rome have taken a lease 
for three years of Monsieur Jeanrenaud’s country 
house, one of the finest estates on the lake. It is 
located between the Villa Diodati and Monsieur 
Lafin-de-Dieu’s place, which the Vicomtesse de 
Beauséant has hired. Prince Colonna came here on 
account of his daughter and his son-in-law, Prince 
Gandolphini, a Neapolitan—or Sicilian, if you 
choose—a former partisan of King Murat and a vic- 
tim of the last revolution. They are the latest 
arrivals at Geneva and they’re not Milanese. It 
required a vast amount of negotiation and the pope’s 
influence in favor of the Colonna family, to obtain 
permission from the foreign powers and the King of 
Naples for Prince and Princess Gandolphini to 
reside here. Geneva prefers to do nothing dis- 
pleasing to the Holy Alliance, to which she owes 
her independence. Our policy is not to get into 
trouble with foreign courts. There are many for- 
eigners here: Russians and English.’’ 

‘There are some Genevans, too.’’ 

‘Yes, monsieur. Our lake is so beautiful. Lord 
Byron lived at Villa Diodati about seven years ago, 
and now everybody goes to see it, like Coppet and 
Ferney.”’ 


84 ALBERT SAVARUS 


**You can’t find out for me, can you, whether a 
bookseller and his wife, one Lamporani, one of the 
leaders in the last revolution, have arrived here 
within a week?”’ 

“I can find out by going to the Cercle des Etran- 
gers,’’ said the former jeweler. 

Rodolphe’s first excursion naturally had for its 
objective point the Villa Diodati, once the residence 
of Lord Byron, and rendered even more interesting 
by that great poet’s recent death; death is the cor- 
onation of genius. The road thither from Eaux- 
Vives, which skirts the shore of the lake, is, like 
all Swiss roads, extremely narrow; and in certain 
spots, owing to the mountainous character of the 
country, there is barely enough room for two car- 
riages to pass. A few steps from the Jeanrenaud 
house, which he had approached without being 
aware of it, Rodolphe heard the wheels of a carriage 
behind him; and as he was at that moment ina 
sort of defile he climbed to the top of a rock to leave 
the road clear. Naturally he watched the approach 
of the carriage, a stylish caléche drawn by two 
superb English horses. His eyes swam as he recog- 
nized Francesca, arrayed like a goddess, sitting on 
the back seat of the caléche, beside an old lady as 
stiff asacameo. A footman, in glistening gold lace, 
stood behind. Francesca recognized Rodolphe, and 
smiled to see him standing like a statue on its 
pedestal. The carriage, which the amorous youth 
followed with his eyes as it climbed the hill, turned 
in at the gate of a villa, and he at once hurried after. 


ALBERT SAVARUS 85 


‘*Who lives here ?’’ he asked the gardener. 

“‘Prince and Princess Colonna, also Prince and 
Princess Gandolphini.”’ 

‘‘Were those the princesses who just drove in?”’ 

‘Yes, monsieur.’’ 

In a second, a veil fell from before Rodolphe’s 
eyes, and the past was made clear to him. 

“If only this is the last mystification!’’ said the 
thunderstruck lover to himself at last. 

He trembled to think that he might have been the 
plaything of a caprice, for he had heard what a 
formidable thing a capriccio may be in the hands of 
an Italian woman. But what a deadly crime, ina 
woman’s eyes, to have accepted a princess, a born 
princess, as a woman of the bourgeois class! to have 
taken the daughter of one of the most illustrious 
families of the Middle Ages for a bookseller’s wife! 
The consciousness of his blunders redoubled 
Rodolphe’s anxiety to know if he would be dis- 
owned, repulsed. He asked for Prince Gandolphini 
and sent in his card, and was immediately received 
by the false Lamporani, who came out to meet him, 
welcomed him with perfect courtesy, with true 
Neapolitan affability, and took him the whole length 
of a terrace, from which they could see Geneva, the 
Jura and its villa-crowned hills, and the banks of 
the lake extending as far as the eye could see. 

‘*My wife is faithful to the lakes, you see,’’ he 
said, after pointing out the chief features of the 
landscape to his guest. ‘‘We have a sort of con- 
cert this evening,’’ he added, returning toward the 


86 ALBERT SAVARUS 


magnificent Jeanrenaud mansion; “‘I trust that you 
will give the princess and myself the pleasure of 
your company. Two months of wretchedness en- 
dured in common are equivalent to years of friend- 
ship.’”’ 

Although consumed with curiosity, Rodolphe did 
not dare ask to see the princess; he returned slowly 
to Eaux-Vives, absorbed by his anticipations of the 
evening. Within a few hours, his love, prodigious 
as it already was, was greatly increased by his 
anxiety and by his suspense as to the future. He 
realized now the necessity of making a name for 
himself, so that he might be, socially speaking, 
upon his idol’s level. In his eyes, Francesca seemed 
grand beyond words by reason of the unconstraint 
and the simplicity of her conduct at Gersau. The 
naturally haughty air of the Princess Colonna made 
Rodolphe tremble; and he was certain to have 
against him Francesca’s father and mother,—at 
least he might well expect it; and the secrecy as to 
their former acquaintance so earnestly urged upon 
him by Princess Gandolphini seemed to him then a 
convincing proof of her affection. By her unwill- 
ingness to endanger the future did not Francesca say 
as plainly as possible that she loved Rodolphe ? 

At last nine o’clock struck and Rodolphe could take 
a carriage and say to the driver with emotion easy 
to understand: 

**To Prince Gandolphini’s, Maison Jeanrenaud!’’ 

He entered the salon, filled with foreigners of the 
highest distinction, and remained perforce in a group 


ALBERT SAVARUS 87 


near the door, for a duet by Rossini was being sung 
at the moment. At last he caught sight of Fran- 
cesca, but without being seen by her. The prin- 
cess was standing within two steps of the piano. 
Her beautiful hair, long and luxuriant, was confined 
by a circlet of gold. Her face, with the candles 
shining full upon it, displayed the marvelous white- 
ness peculiar to Italian women, which produces its 
full effect only by artificial light. She was ina 
ball-dress, showing to the best advantage her mag- 
nificent shoulders, her girlish waist and the arms 
of an antique statue. Her sublime beauty was be- 
yond all possibility of rivalry, although there were 
lovely English women and Russians there, the 
prettiest women in Geneva, and other Italians, 
among whom the illustrious Princess of Veresa 
shone pre-eminent, and the famous cantatrice, 
Tinti, who was singing at that moment. Rodolphe, 
leaning against the doorpost, fixed upon the prin- 
cess a persistent, penetrating, magnetic gaze, laden 
with the whole force of the human will concentrated 
in the sentiment called desire, but which assumes at 
such times the nature of a command. Did the flame 
from that gaze reach Francesca? Was Francesca 
momentarily expecting to see Rodolphe? After a 
few moments she glanced toward the door, as if 
attracted by that love-current, and her eyes, with- 
out hesitation, plunged into Rodolphe’s eyes. A 
slight shudder stirred the superb face and the beau- 
tiful body ; the shock to the heart reacted outward! 
Francesca blushed. Rodolphe lived a whole lifetime, 


88 ALBERT SAVARUS 


as it were, in that exchange of glances, so swift 
that it could be compared only to a flash of light- 
ning. But to what can we compare his happi- 
ness? he was beloved! The divine princess, there 
in the magnificent Jeanrenaud villa, surrounded by 
the kings and queens of society, kept the promise 
given by the poor exile, the capricious guest at the 
house of Bergmann. The intoxication of such a 
moment makes a man a Slave for a lifetime! A 
slight smile, sly and fascinating, ingenuous and 
triumphant, played about Princess Gandolphini’s 
lips, and, at a time when she thought she was un- 
observed she looked at Rodolphe with an expression 
that seemed to crave his forgiveness for having de- 
ceived him as to her rank. The performance at an 
end, Rodolphe succeeded in making his way to the 
prince, who graciously led him to where his wife 
was standing. Rodolphe went through the cere- 
mony of a formal introduction to the princess, 
Prince Colonna and Francesca. When this was at 
an end, the princess was called upon to take part in 
the famous quartet, Mi manca la voce, which was 
executed by herself, La Tinti, Génovése the famous 
tenor, and an illustrious Italian prince then in exile, 
whose voice, if he had not been born a prince, 
would have made him one of the princes of the art. 

“Sit there,’’ said Francesca to Rodolphe, point- 
ing to her own chair. ‘‘Oimé! I believe there’s 
something wrong about my name: for the past few 
moments I have been Princess Rodolphini.”’ 

This confession, veiled behind a jest, was uttered 


ALBERT SAVARUS 89 


with a fascinating, artless grace that recalled the 
blissful days at Gersau. 

Rodolphe experienced the delicious sensation of 
listening to the voice of the woman he adored, 
sitting so near to her that one of his cheeks was 
almost brushed by her dress and the gauze of her 
scarf. But when, under such conditions, the Mi 
manca la voce is being sung by the finest voices 
Italy can furnish, it is easy to understand why 
Rodolphe’s eyes were wet with tears. 

In love, as in everything else perhaps, there are 
certain facts, of the most trifling importance in 
themselves, but which result from a _ thousand 
anterior circumstances, and may be very far-reach- 
ing in their effects as summing up the past and lead- 
ing the way to the future. We may have been 
conscious time and again of the inestimable worth 
of the loved one; but a mere nothing, the perfect 
contact of two hearts welded together during a walk 
by a single word, by an unexpected proof of love, 
exalts that feeling to its highest point. In fine, to 
illustrate this moral truth by a figure that has had 
the most incontestable success since the world be- 
gan: there are, in a long chain, necessary points of 
union where the cohesion is more perfect than in its 
long succession of links. This mutual recognition 
between Rodolphe and Francesca in the face of the 
world during that evening was one of the supreme 
incidents that bind the future to the past, that nail 
genuine attachments more firmly in the heart. Per- 
haps it was of such nails scattered here and there 


go ALBERT SAVARUS 


that Bossuet spoke, when he, who was so keenly 
but secretly alive to love’s emotion, compared with 
them the scarcity of happy moments in our lives. 

Next to the pleasure of gazing admiringly with 
one’s own eyes upon the woman one loves, comes 
that of seeing her universally admired; Rodolphe 
enjoyed both pleasures at once. Love is a treasury 
of memories, and although Rodolphe’s was already 
running over, he added divers priceless pearls to the 
heap; smiles meant for him alone, furtive glances, 
inflections of the voice while singing that Francesca 
improvised for him but that made La Tinti turn pale 
with jealousy, so wildly were they applauded. 
Thus the whole force of desire, the special charac- 
teristic of his heart, was concentrated on the lovely 
Roman, who became unalterably the moving prin- 
ciple and the goal of his every thought and his 
every act. Rodolphe loved as all women may dream 
of being loved, with a force, a constancy, a tenacity 
that made Francesca a part of the very substance of 
his heart; he felt that she was mingled with his 
blood as purer blood than his, with his heart as a 
more perfect heart; she would thenceforth be always 
present beneath the most trivial acts of his life as 
the golden sand of the Mediterranean beneath its 
waters. In short, Rodolphe’s faintest aspiration 
became an active hope. 

After a few days, Francesca realized the immen- 
sity of his love; but it was so natural, so fully re- 
quited, that she was not surprised at it; she was 
worthy of it. 


ALBERT SAVARUS QI 


‘“What is there surprising,’’ she said to Rodolphe, 
as they were walking upon the terrace in her garden, 
after she had surprised him in the act of yielding to 
one of the conceited impulses so natural to French- 
men in the expression of their feelings,—‘‘what is 
there to wonder at in your loving a young, beautiful 
woman, who is enough of an artist to be able to earn 
her living as La Tinti does, and can gratify your 
vanity to some extent? What lout would not be- 
come an Amadis under such circumstances? That’s 
not the question between us. What we must do is 
to be faithful and constant in our love, for long years 
and at a distance, without other pleasure than that 
of knowing that we are loved.”’ 

‘*Alas!’’ said Rodolphe, ‘‘shall you not consider 
that my fidelity is deprived of all merit when you see 
me intent upon the tasks set me by a consuming 
ambition? Do you think that I want you some day 
to exchange the illustrious name of Gandolphini for 
the name of a man who amounts to nothing? | 
mean to become one of the most illustrious men in 
my country, to be rich and great, so that you may 
be as proud of my name as of your own name of 
Colonna. ’’ 

**] should be very sorry to know that you had not 
such sentiments in your heart,’’ she replied with a 
charming smile. ‘‘But don’t expend too much of 
your strength in satisfying your ambition; remain 
young.—They say that politics makes a man old 
before his time.’’ 

The rarest quality among women is a certain 


92 ALBERT SAVARUS 


amount of light-heartedness that does not diminish 
their affections. This combination of deep-rooted 
sentiment with the gaiety of youth added other 
adorable charms to those already possessed by Fran- 
cesca. Therein lies the key to her character; she 
laughs and weeps, she rises to lofty heights of sen- 
timent and reverts to sly raillery with an abandon, 
an ease of manner, which make of her the fascinating, 
delightful creature whose reputation extends far be- 
yond the limits of Italy. She concealed beneath the 
charms of the woman very extensive learning, the 
result of the monotonous, quasi-conventual life she 
had led in the old chateau of the Colonnas. The 
wealthy heiress was originally destined for the 
cloister, being the fourth child of the Prince and 
Princess Colonna; but the deaths of her twin 
brothers and her older sister brought her forth sud- 
denly from her retirement to make of her one of the 
most desirable matches to be found in Roman terri- 
tory. As her elder sister’s hand had been promised 
to Prince Gandolphini, one of the richest landed 
proprietors in Sicily, Francesca’s hand was be- 
stowed upon him that there might be no change in 
the family arrangements. The Colonnas and Gan- 
dolphinis had always intermarried. From nine to 
sixteen, Francesca, under the guidance of a cardinal 
who was her kinsman, read the whole Colonna 
library, in order to divert the course of her ardent 
imagination by studying the sciences, the arts and 
literature. But asa result of her studies she ac- 
quired that leaning toward independence and liberal 


ALBERT SAVARUS 93 


ideas which led her to throw herself, as well as her 
husband, into the revolution. Rodolphe did not as 
yet know that, in addition to the five living lan- 
guages, Francesca knew Greek, Latin and Hebrew. 
This charming creature was fully conscious that one 
of the first essentials of learning, in a woman, is 
that it be carefully concealed. 

Rodolphe remained all the winter at Geneva. 
The winter passed like a single day. With the ad- 
vent of spring, notwithstanding the exquisite pleas- 
ure to be derived from the society of an intellectual 
woman, of extraordinary learning, young and light- 
hearted, this love-lorn youth experienced cruel 
suffering, endured with courage to be sure, but which 
sometimes made itself visible on his face, and 
affected his conduct and his speech, perhaps because 
he thought that he alone felt it. Sometimes he was 
annoyed at Francesca’s tranquillity, for, like the 
English, it seemed to be a matter of pride with her 
to allow no trace of her feelings to appear upon her 
face, whose serenity defied love; he would have 
liked her to show some agitation, he accused her 
of having no feeling, trusting to the commonly re- 
ceived idea that all Italian women are restless and 
excitable. 

“1 am a Roman!’’ Francesca gravely remarked 
one day, taking seriously some jest of Rodolphe’s 
on that subject. 

There was in the tone in which she made this 
reply a depth of feeling which made it seem like 
fierce irony, and which made Rodolphe’s heart beat 


04 ALBERT SAVARUS 


fast. The month of May was displaying its treas- 
ures of fresh verdure, the sun was as powerful at 
times asin midsummer. The two lovers were lean- 
ing upon the stone balustrade which surmounts the 
supporting wall of a stairway leading down to the 
landing-stage, at a part of the terrace where the 
shore rises perpendicularly from the lake. From the 
next villa, where there was a similar landing-stage, 
a yawl shot out into the lake like a swan, with its 
red flag and crimson canopy, beneath which a lovely 
woman with a head-dress of natural flowers was loll- 
ing upon red cushions, rowed by a young man 
dressed as a Sailor, who plied his oars with more 
finished grace because the woman’s eyes were upon 
him. 

‘‘They are happy!’”’ said Rodolphe in a discon- 
tented tone. ‘‘Claire de Bourgogne, the last scion 
of the only house that has ever held its own against 
the royal house of France—’’ 

‘Oho !—she descends from an illegitimate branch, 
and in the female line too—’’ 

‘“‘But she is Vicomtesse de Beauséant, and 
hasn’t—”’ 

“‘Hasn’t hesitated, you would say, to bury herself 
here with Monsieur Gaston du Nueil?’’ said the 
daughter of the Colonnas. ‘‘She is only a French- 
woman and I am an Italian, my dear monsieur.”’ 

Francesca left the balustrade, turned her back on 
Rodolphe, and went to the farther end of the ter- 
race, whence there is a view of a vast expanse of 
the lake. As he saw her walking slowly away, 


ALBERT SAVARUS 95 


Rodolphe had a suspicion that he had wounded that 
heart at once so innocent and so enlightened, so 
proud and sohumble. Hewascold with dismay; he 
followed Francesca, who motioned to him to leave 
her to herself; but he paid no heed to the warning 
and surprised her wiping away tears. Tears with 
so virile a nature as hers! 

‘‘Francesca,’’ he said, taking her hand, ‘‘is 
there a single regret in your heart?’’ 

She said nothing, but withdrew her hand which 
held her embroidered handkerchief, in order to wipe 
her eyes again. 

‘*Forgive me!’’ he continued. 

And with an irresistible impulse, he put his lips 
to her eyes to wipe away the tears with kisses. 

Francesca was so deeply moved that she did not 
notice this passionate movement. Rodolphe, think- 
ing that she consented, grew bolder; he threw his 
arm about Francesca’s waist, pressed her to his 
heart, and stole a kiss; but she extricated herself 
with a superb gesture of offended modesty, and 
standing two steps away, said to him, without anger 
but with decision: 

“*Go away to-night; weshall not meet again until 
we return to Naples.’’ 

Notwithstanding the severity of this order, it was 
religiously obeyed, for Francesca wished it. 

On his return to Paris Rodolphe found at his rooms 
the Princess Gandolphini’s portrait, painted by 
Schinner, as only Schinner can paint a portrait. 
The painter had passed through Geneva on his way 


96 ALBERT SAVARUS 


to Italy. As he had positively refused to paint 
several ladies, Rodolphe did not believe that the 
prince, who was extremely desirous to have a por- 
trait of his wife, could have succeeded in overcom- 
ing the famous artist’s repugnance; but Fran- 
cesca had fascinated him, without doubt, and 
had obtained from him—and a prodigious achieve- 
ment it was—an original portrait for Rodolphe, 
a copy for Emilio. That is what was told him 
in an enchanting, soul-satisfying letter wherein 
the thought took its revenge for the restraint im- 
posed by the religion of the proprieties. The lover 
replied. Thus began, to cease no more, a regular 
correspondence between Rodolphe and Francesca, 
the only pleasure they permitted themselves to in- 
dulge in. 

Rodolphe, mastered by ambition which his love 
made legitimate, put his shoulder to the wheel at 
once. He wanted fortune first of all, and risked all his 
powers and all his capital in a new enterprise; but 
he had to contend, with the inexperience of youth, 
against a system of double-dealing which triumphed 
over him. Three years were thrown away in this 
vast undertaking, three years of courageous effort. 

The Villéle ministry went by the board just at 
the time when Rodolphe succumbed. Immediately, 
the undaunted lover determined to seek in politics 
what commerce denied him; but before launching his 
bark on the stormy sea of that career, he went, all 
crushed and broken, to have his wounds dressed and to 
procure a fresh supply of courage at Naples, whither 


ALBERT SAVARUS 97 


the Prince and Princess Gandolphini had been re- 
called to be restored to their estates, at the acces- 
sion of the king. This was a period of blissful 
repose in the midst of his strife; he passed three 
months at the Villa Gandolphini, soothed by sweet 
hopes. 

Once more Rodolphe began to rebuild the edifice 
of his fortune. His talents had already attracted 
attention, he was on the point of realizing his 
ambition, an eminent position had been promised 
him in recognition of his zeal and devotion, and of 
services rendered by him, when the storm of July 
1830, burst, and his bark foundered once more. 

She and God, those two are the only witnesses of 
the most brave-hearted efforts, the most audacious 
ventures of a young man, endowed with valuable 
qualities, but who, thus far, has failed to secure the 
assistance of the god of fools, Luck! And this untir- 
ing athlete, sustained by his love, is about engaging 
in fresh combats, made bright by a friendly glance, 
by a faithful heart !— 

Lovers, pray for him !— 








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* 


When she came to the end of this tale, which she 
fairly devoured, Mademoiselle de Watteville’s 
cheeks were on fire, fever was in her veins; she was 
weeping, but with rage. This novel, inspired by 
the fashionable literature of the day, was the first 
work of the sort Rosalie had ever been permitted to 
read. Love was depicted there, if not by a master’s 
hand, at all events by a man who seemed to be 
recording his own impressions; now the truth, albeit 
unskilfully told, should make its mark on a still vir- 
gin heart. Therein lay the secret of Rosalie’s ter- 
rible excitement, of her burning fever and her tears; 
she was jealous of Francesca Colonna. She did not 
doubt the sincerity of that poetic conception; Albert 
had taken pleasure in describing the beginning of 
his passion, disguising the names, of course, and 
perhaps the places as well. Rosalie was seized 
with an infernal curiosity. What woman would not 
have longed, as she did, to know her rival’s real 
name? for she was in love! As she read those 
papers laden with contagion for her, she had said to 
herself these solemn words: ‘‘I love!’’ She loved 
Albert and was conscious of an intense longing in 
her heart to fight for him, to tear him from this un- 
known rival. She reflected that she knew nothing 
of music and that she was not beautiful. 

‘*He will never love me,’’ she said to herself. 

(99) 


100 ALBERT SAVARUS 


This thought increased tenfold her desire to find 
out if she were not mistaken, if Albert were really in 
love with an Italian princess, and if she loved him. 
During that fatal night the faculty of swift decision 
which distinguished the famous Watteville, was 
displayed to the fullest extent by his descendant. 
She conceived some of those extraordinary projects, 
about which almost every young girl’s imagination 
hovers, when, amid the solitude in which some in- 
judicious mothers rear their daughters, they are 
excited by some momentous event which the sys- 
tem of compression to which they are subjected has 
failed to anticipate or to prevent. She thought of 
descending by a ladder, from the belvedere, into the 
garden of the house where Albert lived, and of tak- 
ing advantage of the advocate’s slumber to look into 
his office through the window. She thought of 
writing to him, she thought of breaking all the fet- 
ters of Bisontine society by introducing Albert into 
the De Rupt salon. This enterprise, which would 
have seemed the acme of the impossible to the Abbé 
de Grancey himself, suggested a thought. 

**Ah!’’ she said to herself, ‘‘my father has some 
trouble or other at the Rouxeys; I’ll go there! If 
there isn’t a lawsuit about it, I’ll start one, and he 
will come to our salon!’’ she cried, darting from her 
bed to the window to see the marvelous light that 
illumined Albert’s vigils. 

One o’clock struck; he was still asleep. 

‘*] shall see him when he gets up, perhaps he’ll 
come to his window!’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS IOI 


At that moment Mademoiselle de Watteville was 
an eye-witness of an occurrence which was destined 
to place in her hands the means of attaining a 
knowledge of Albert’s secrets. By the light of the 
moon she saw a pair of arms stretched out from the 
belvedere, which assisted Jéréme, Albert’s servant, 
to climb over the crest of the wall and enter the 
structure. In Jéréme’s accomplice, Rosalie readily 
recognized Mariette, the maid. 

‘Mariette and Jéréme,’’ she said to herself. 
‘‘And Mariette is such an ugly creature! Certainly, 
they ought both to be ashamed of themselves.’’ 

Although Mariette was horribly ugly and thirty- 
six years old, she had inherited several acres of land. 
Having been seventeen years in the service of Ma- 
dame de Watteville, who held her in high esteem 
because of her piety, her honesty and her length of 
service in the family, she had saved some money 
without doubt, had invested her wages and her 
profits. At ten louis a year, she should be the mis- 
tress of some fifteen thousand francs, reckoning 
compound interest and the land she had inherited. 
In Jéréme’s eyes fifteen thousand francs changed 
all the laws of optics: he thought Mariette had a 
very pretty figure, he could not see the holes and 
seams left upon her dull, wrinkled face by a terrible 
attack of small-pox; in his eyes the twisted mouth 
was straight; and since Savaron the advocate, by 
taking him into his service, had brought him within 
a short distance of the De Rupt mansion, he was 
laying siege in due form to the pious serving-maid, 


102 ALBERT SAVARUS 


who was as stiff and prudish as her mistress, and, 
like all ugly old maids, was more exacting than the 
loveliest of women. If now the nocturnal scene in 
the belvedere is explained to the satisfaction of 
clear-sighted folk, it was still most mysterious to 
Rosalie, who nevertheless learned from it the most 
dangerous of all lessons, that, namely, which a bad 
example teaches. A mother brings up her daughter 
with the utmost rigor, covers her with her wings 
for seventeen years, and, in a single hour, a servant 
makes this long and painful toil of no effect, some- 
times by a word, often by a mere gesture! Rosalie 
went back to bed, not without reflecting upon all 
the advantage she might derive from her discovery. 
The next morning, as she was on her way to mass 
with Mariette—the baroness being indisposed— 
Rosalie took her maid’s arm, thereby greatly sur- 
prising the young woman. 

‘*Mariette,’’ said she, ‘‘is Jéréme in his master’s 
confidence ?”’ 

**] don’t know, mademoiselle.”’ 

“Don’t play the innocent with me,’”’ rejoined 
Rosalie dryly. ‘‘You allowed him to kiss you last 
night in the summer-house. I am no longer sur- 
prised that you were so much in favor of my 
mother’s proposed improvements there. ’’ 

Rosalie was conscious of the fit of trembling that 
seized Mariette, by the shaking of her arm. 

“I wish you no ill,’’ continued Rosalie; ‘‘never 
fear, | won’t say a word to my mother, and you can 
see Jéréme as much as you wish.”’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 103 


‘‘But, mademoiselle,’’ Mariette replied, ‘‘it’s all 
as it should be; Jéréme has no other purpose than to 
marry me—’”’ 

“But, in that case, why do you make appoint- 
ments with him at night?’’ 

Mariette was silenced and did not know what 
reply to make. 

‘‘Listen to me, Mariette; I too am in love! | 
love in secret, and all by myself. After all, | am 
the only child of my parents; so you have more to 
expect from me than from anybody else in the 
world—”’ 

‘*Certainly, mademoiselle, you can rely upon us 
in life or death,’’ cried Mariette, overjoyed at this 
unexpected conclusion. 

“‘In the first place, silence for silence,’’ said Rosa- 
lie. ‘1 don’t want to marry Monsieur de Soulas; 
but I do want a certain thing, absolutely want it; 
you can have my protection only at that price.’’ 

‘*What is it??? Mariette asked. 

‘*1 want to see the letters Monsieur Savaron sends 
to the post by Jéréme.’’ 

‘“Why, what for ?’’ said Mariette in dismay. 

**Oh! just to read, and you can put them in the 
post yourself afterward. That will delay them just 
a little, that’s all.’’ 

At that moment Mariette and Rosalie entered the 
church, and each of them pursued her own reflec- 
tions instead of following the reading of the mass. 

‘*Mon Dieu! how many deadly sins are there in 
all this ?’’ said Mariette to herself. 


104 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Rosalie, whose mind and brain and heart were in 
a turmoil from the perusal of the novel, saw in it a 
sort of narrative written for her rival. By dint of 
thinking long, as children do, upon the same sub- 
ject, she finally came to the conclusion that the 
Revue de l’Est was probably sent to Albert’s be- 
loved. 

‘*Oh!’’ she said to herself on her knees, with her 
head buried in her hands, in the attitude of one lost 
in prayer, ‘‘oh! how can | induce father to consult 
the list of persons to whom the Revue is sent?’ 

After breakfast she walked around the garden 
with her father, talking to him in a cajoling way, 
and led him under the summer-house. 

‘‘Do you suppose our Revue goes to foreign coun- 
tries, dear little papa ?’’ 

**It’s only just starting—”’ 

“Well, I’ll wager that it does.’ 

**It’s hardly possible.”’ 

**Go and find out, and copy the names of the for- 
eign subscribers. ”’ . 

Two hours later Monsieur de Watteville said to 
his daughter : 

“*l was right, there’s not a subscriber yet outside 
of France. They hope to get some at Neufchatel, 
at Berne, at Geneva. They are sending a copy to 
Italy, gratuitously, to a Milanese lady at her country 
estate of Belgirate on Lago Maggiore.”’ 

‘‘What’s her name ?’’ said Rosalie eagerly. 

‘The Duchess of Argaiolo.’’ 

“‘Do you know her, father ?”’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 105 


‘Naturally, I have heard of her. She was born 
Princess Soderini; she’s a Florentine, a very great 
lady and quite as rich as her husband, who pos- 
sesses one of the greatest fortunes in all Lombardy. 
Their villa on Lago Maggiore is one of the curiosi- 
ties of Italy.”’ 








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Two days later Mariette handed Rosalie the fol- 
lowing letter: 


ALBERT SAVARON TO LEOPOLD HANNEQUIN 


‘‘Well, yes, my dear friend, I was here at Besan- 
con while you supposed I was traveling. I didn’t 
want to tell you anything until success was at hand 
and this is its dawn. Yes, dear Léopold, after so 
many abortive undertakings in which I have ex- 
pended my purest blood, upon which I have wasted 
such strenuous effort and so much courage, | deter- 
mined to follow your example; to take a beaten 
track, the high road, the longest but the surest. I 
can see you jump in your notarial armchair. But 
do not imagine that there has been any change in 
my interior life, of which you alone in the world 
know the secret, subject to the conditions which she 
required. I did not tell you so, my friend, but I was 
horribly bored at Paris. The conclusion of the first 
enterprise, on which I rested all my hopes, and 
‘which came to nothing on account of the double- 
dyed villainy of my two partners, who put their 
heads together to deceive me and rob me—me, to 
whose energy every promise of success was due— 
made me abandon the idea of seeking pecuniary for- 
tune after | had wasted in that pursuit three years 

(107) 


108 ALBERT SAVARUS 


of my life, of which one year was passed in litiga- 
tion. Perhaps I should not have come out of it so 
well had I not been compelled, at twenty, to study 
law. I have determined to become prominent in 
politics for the sole purpose of being some day in- 
cluded among the elevations to the peerage under 
the title of Comte Albert Savaron de Savarus, and 
of reviving in France an honorable name which is 
extinct in Belgium, although I am neither legitimate 
nor legitimated !—’’ 


‘Ah! I was sure of it, he is of noble birth!’’ cried 
Rosalie, dropping the letter. 


‘You know how conscientiously I studied, how 
hard I worked and how useful I made myself as an 
obscure journalist, and what an admirable secretary 
I was to the statesman who was faithful to me, by 
the way, in 1829. Reduced to a cipher once more 
by the Revolution of July, just when my name was 
beginning to be known, and when, as master of 
requests, I was at last on the point of being made 
part of the political machine as a necessary spoke, 
I made the mistake of remaining faithful to the van- 
quished, of fighting for them without their assistance. 
Ah! why was I only thirty-three years old; why. 
did I not ask you to make me eligible? | hid all 
my sacrifices and all my perils from you. What 
would you have? I had faith; we should have dis- 
agreed. Ten months ago, when I seemed to you to 
be so light of heart and so content with my lot, 


ALBERT SAVARUS 109g 


writing my political articles, | was desperate! I 
saw myself at the age of thirty-seven, with only two 
thousand francs in the world, without the slightest 
approach to celebrity, having just failed in a noble 
undertaking, that of carrying on a daily newspaper, 
which aimed to fill a want of the future instead of 
appealing to the passions of the moment. | didn’t 
know which way to turn. And yet 1 knew my own 
powers! I walked about, unhappy and wounded to 
the heart, in the deserted quarters of that Paris 
which had eluded my grasp, thinking of my foiled 
ambition, but without abandoning it. Oh! what 
letters | wrote in my frenzy to her, my second con- 
science, my other self! At times I said to myself: 

‘**Why have I sketched so vast a program for 
my life? why aspire to everything? why not await 
the coming of happiness, devoting myself mean- 
while to some quasi-mechanical occupation ?’ 

‘*At such times I have looked about for a retired 
spot where | could live. I was about to take the 
editorship of a newspaper under a manager who 
knew but little, an ambitious rich man, when | was 
seized with terror. 

***Would she want for her husband a lover who 
had descended so low?’ I said to myself. 

**That reflection gave me back my twenty-two 
years! Oh! my dear Léopold, how the heart does 
wear itself out in such perplexities! What must 
caged eagles suffer, and imprisoned lions? They 
suffer all that Napoléon suffered, not at St. Helena, 
but on the Quai des Tuileries on the tenth of August, 


IIo ALBERT SAVARUS 


when he, who could put down sedition as he did 
later on the same spot, in Vendémiaire, saw Louis 
XVI. defending himself sofeebly! Well, my life has 
been that one day’s suffering extended over four 
years. How many speeches to the Chamber have 
I not declaimed in the deserted avenues of the Bois 
de Boulogne! These profitless improvisations did 
at least sharpen my tongue and accustom my mind 
to give form to its thoughts in words. While 1 was 
suffering these secret torments, you married, paid 
the last instalment of your notarial fee, and became 
deputy-mayor of your arrondissement, after earning 
the cross by the wound you received at Saint-Merri. 

‘‘Listen! When I was a little fellow and used to 
torment cockchafers, the poor creatures used to do 
one thing that almost gave me a fever: it was when 
I saw them making repeated efforts to fly without 
rising from the ground, although they succeeded in 
spreading their wings. We used to say of them: 
They’re counting! Was it sympathy? was it a 
vision of my future? Oh! to spread one’s wings 
and to be unable tofly! That is what has been my 
fate since that promising undertaking which turned 
out to my discomfiture, but which made four fami- 
lies rich. 

‘At last, seven months since, I determined to 
make myself a name at the Paris bar, when | saw 
what gaps were left there by the promotion of so 
many advocates to high office. But, as 1 remem- 
bered the rivalries that exist in the press, and how 
difficult it is to succeed in anything whatsoever at 


ALBERT SAVARUS III 


Paris, the arena in which so many champions meet, 

I formed a resolution, cruel to myself, but certain in 
its results and perhaps more speedily efficacious 
than any other. You have explained to me, in our 
talks together, the social constitution of Besancon, 

the impossibility of a stranger’s making his way 
there, or making the least sensation, marrying, get- 
ting into society, or succeeding in any direction 
whatsoever. That was where | determined to plant 
my flag, rightly concluding that I should escape 
rivalry there, and should be quite alone in scheming 
for election to the Chamber. The natives of 
Franche-Comté don’t choose to see the stranger,— 
the stranger will not see them! they refuse to admit 
him to their salons,—he will never go there! he 
won’t show his face anywhere, not even in the 
streets! But there is one class of men that makes 

deputies, the business men. I will make a special 

study of commercial questions, with which I am 

already familiar; I will win lawsuits, I will settle 
disputes, I will become the leading advocate of 
Besancon. Later on! will found a review there in 
which I will defend the interests of the province, in 

which I will create new interests, vivify or regener- 
ate the old. When! have won over, one by one, a 
sufficient number of votes, my name will head the 
poll. For a long while people will look with disdain» 
upon the unknown advocate, but there will be one 
way of bringing him forward into the light, to un- 
dertake a case gratuitously—some case that other 
advocates don’t choose to touch. If I speak once I 


112 ALBERT SAVARUS 


am sure of success. And so, my dear Léopold, I 
had my library packed in eleven chests, I bought 
such law books as might be of use to me, and | put 
them all, as well as my furniture, on the goods- 
wagon for Besangon. 1 took my diplomas, scraped 
a thousand crowns together and went to say fare- 
well to you. The mail-coach landed me in Besan- 
con, where, after looking about for three days, | 
selected a small suite of rooms overlooking some 
gardens; there I sumptuously furnished the myster- 
ious office where | pass my nights and days, and 
where the portrait of my idol looks down upon me 
—her portrait, to whom my life is consecrated, who 
fills my heart, who is the mainspring of my strug- 
gles, the secret of my courage, the foundation of my 
talent. When the furniture and books arrived, | 
hired an intelligent servant and remained for five 
months like a marmot in winter. My name was 
inscribed on the roll of advocates, by the way. At 
last | was appointed by the court to defend a poor 
devil at the assizes, for the pleasure of hearing my 
voice at least once, no doubt! One of the most in- 
fluential business men in Besancon was on the jury; 
he had a complicated case of his own; I did all man 
could do for the poor man, and | was entirely suc- 
cessful. My client was acquitted, and | dramatically 
caused the arrest of the real culprits who were 
among the witnesses. At the end, the court echoed 
the admiration of the public. 1 cleverly spared the 
self-esteem of the committing magistrate by pointing 
out that it was almost an impossibility to discover 


ALBERT SAVARUS 113 


so deftly woven a plot. I secured my wealthy 
merchant as a client and won his case for him. The 
chapter of the cathedral selected me for counsel in a 
suit of immense importance, with the city, which 
had lasted four years: I won it. By virtue of these 
three causes I have become the leading advocate in 
Franche-Comté. But 1 shroud my life in the most 
profound mystery, and thus conceal my real pur- 
pose. I have formed habits which enable me to 
decline all invitations. I can be consulted only 
between six and eight in the morning, | go to bed 
immediately after dinner, and work during the night. 
The vicar-general, a bright man and very influen- 
tial, who employed me in the affair of the chapter, 
which had been decided adversely in the court of 
first instance, naturally spoke to me about my 
remuneration. 

‘* Monsieur,’ said I to him, ‘I will win your case, 
but I want no fees, | want something more—’ the 
abbé gave a start—‘Understand that I lose a vast 
deal by taking 1p a position adverse to the city; I 
came here to be elected deputy, I don’t care to un- 
dertake any but commercial cases, because the busi- 
ness men make deputies, and they will distrust me 
if I try cases for the priests—for in their eyes you 
are the priests. lf 1 undertake this case of yours, it 
is only because I was, in 1828, private secretary to 
such a minister—’ another gesture of amazement 
from my abbé—‘master of requests under the name 
of Albert de Savarus’—another gesture.—‘I have 


remained true to monarchical principles; but as you 
8 


114 ALBERT SAVARUS 


are not in the majority in Besancon, I must look for 
votes among the bourgeoisie. And so the fees that I 
ask from you are such votes as you can turn over to 
me, secretly, at an opportune moment. Let us both 
agree to keep the secret, and | will try all the cases 
of all the priests in the diocese for nothing. Not a 
word as to my antecedents, and let us be true to 
each other.’ 

‘“When he came to thank me, he handed me a 
bank-note for five hundred francs, and whispered in 
my ear: 

‘«*The votes still hold good.’ 

‘In the course of five consultations that we had 
together I made a friend of this vicar-general, | 
think. Nowl am overcrowded with cases, and take 
only those in which business men are interested, 
saying that commercial questions are my specialty. 
These tactics attract the business men to me and 
allow me to ascertain who the influential people are. 
So all goes well. Within a few months I shall have 
found a house in Besancon to buy, which will give 
me the necessary qualification. I rely upon you to 
loan me the necessary funds for the purchase. If | 
die, or if I fail, the loss will not be heavy enough to 
make it a consideration between us. The interest 
will be taken care of by the rents, and I shall be 
very careful to wait for a good bargain so that you 
may lose nothing by this enforced mortgage loan, 

‘“‘Ah! my dear Leopold, never did a gambler, 
with all that remains of his fortune in his pocket, 
stake it at the Cercle des Etrangers on the last night 


ALBERT SAVARUS IIS 


which was to leave him rich or ruined, with such 
perpetual jangling of bells in his ears, such a ner- 
vous sweat moistening his hands, such feverish ex- 
citement in his brain, such inward tremblings in 
his body, as I experience day after day while | play 
my last stake in the game of ambition. Alas! my 
dear and only friend, soon it will be ten years that 
I have been engaged in this struggle. This con- 
stant combat with men and things, in which | have 
expended my strength and my energy, in which I 
have almost worn out the springs of desire, has un- 
dermined me, so to speak, within. Although 
apparently strong and in good health, I feel that 
] am a wreck. Every day carries away a frag- 
ment of my inmost life. With every new effort 
1 feel that I can never begin again. I have no 
force, no power left save for happiness, and if it 
should not come and lay its wreath of roses on my 
head, the / that is in me would cease to exist, | 
should become a worn-out chattel, I should no longer 
wish for anything on earth, nor wish to be any- 
thing. As you know, the power and renown, the 
moral fortune for which | strive, are but a secondary 
consideration: they are the means of attaining 
felicity, the pedestal of my idol. 

“*To die as one reaches the goal, like the runner 
of old! to see fortune and death arriving together at 
one’s threshold! to obtain one’s love at the moment 
love is dying! to have lost the power to enjoy when 
one has conquered the right to live happily !—oh! 
of how many men that is the destiny! 


116 ALBERT SAVARUS 


“Surely there comes a moment when Tantalus 
calls a halt, folds his arms and defies hell, abandon- 
ing his trade of everlasting trickster. 1 shall have 
reached that point if anything should cause my 
plan to fail; if, after | have crawled in the dust of 
the provinces, like a hungry tiger, around these 
merchants and electors to secure their votes; if, 
after I have tried their paltry cases and have given 
them my time—the time I might have passed on 
Lago Maggiore, looking upon the water that she 
looks upon, lying beneath her eyes and hearing her 
sweet voice,—if, | say, | should not make my way 
to the tribune, there to win the halo that should 
surround a name to succeed the name of Argaiolo. 
More than that,—Léopold, some days I feel a vague 
languor; a deathly sense of loathing rises from the 
bottom of my heart, especially when, in my long 
reveries, | have plunged in anticipation amid the 
delights of unclouded love! Is the power of desire 
in our hearts limited, and can it perish by a too 
great effusion of its substance? After all is said, 
my life at this moment is a beautiful life, illumined 
by faith and work and love. Farewell, my friend. 
I kiss your little ones, and you will, } know, recall 
to the memory of your good wife 


““YOUR ALBERT.”’ 


Rosalie read this letter twice and its general pur- 
port was engraved on her heart. She was suddenly 
enabled to penetrate the mystery of Albert’s previous 
life, for her quick intelligence made its details clear 


ALBERT SAVARUS 117 


to her from the beginning. By combining this 
knowledge with the novel published in the Revue, 
she arrived at a complete understanding of Albert’s 
life and character. Naturally she exaggerated the 
noble proportions of that great heart, of that power- 
ful will; and her love for Albert became a passion 
whose violence was augmented by all the strength 
of her youth, the ennui of her solitude and the hid- 
den energy of her character. To love is a result of 
the laws of nature in a young person; but when the 
craving for affection is directed toward a man of 
extraordinary qualities, it receives a reinforcement 
of enthusiasm which overflows its banks in youthful 
hearts. So it was that Mademoiselle de Watteville 
before many days reached a quasi-morbid and very 
dangerous phase of amorous excitement. 

The baroness was very well satisfied with her 
daughter, who, under the spell of her profound self- 
absorption, ceased to resist her, seemed to apply 
herself diligently to her various tasks, and realized 
her beau ideal of the submissive daughter. 





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The advocate at this time was trying two or three 
cases a week. Although overburdened with busi- 
ness, he attended to his duties at the Palais, looked 
after the commercial litigation and the Revue, and 
remained a profound mystery, realizing that his 
influence would be the more genuine, the more 
mysterious and hidden itwas. But he neglected no 
means of success, studying the list of the electors of 
Besancon, and looking up their characters, their 
friendships and enmities and their interests. Did 
ever a cardinal, striving to be chosen pope, give 
himself so much trouble ? . 

One evening Mariette, when she came to Rosa- 
lie’s room to dress her for a party, handed her, not 
without much inward groaning at the abuse of con- 
fidence, a letter whose superscription caused Ma- 
demoiselle de Watteville to shudder, and to growred 
and white by turns. 


TO MADAME LA DUCHESSE D’ARGAIOLO 
Née Princesse Soderini 

Lago Maggiore BELGIRATE 

ITALIE 


This address gleamed in her eyes as the Mene, 
Tehel, Upharsin must have gleamed in the eyes of 
(119) 


120 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Belshazzar. Having concealed the letter she went 
downstairs to accompany her mother to Madame de 
Chavoncourt’s. During the evening she was 
assailed by remorse and scruples of conscience. 
She had already felt ashamed of having violated 
the secrecy of Albert’s letter to Léopold. She had 
asked herself many times if the noble-hearted Albert 
could esteem her, knowing her to be guilty of that 
crime, which the fact that it must necessarily go 
unpunished, renders infamous. Her conscience 
energetically answered: no! She had expiated her 
sin by imposing penances upon herself; she fasted, 
she mortified the flesh by remaining on her knees, 
with folded arms, repeating prayers for hours at a 
time. She had forced Mariette to perform similar 
acts of repentance. The truest asceticism was 
mingled with her passion and made it so much the 
more dangerous. 

“‘Shall 1 read the letter, or shall I not?’’ she said 
to herself as she listened to the prattle of the little 
De Chavoncourts.—One was sixteen years old and 
the other seventeen and a half. Rosalie looked 
upon these two friends of hers as little girls because 
they were not secretly in love.—“‘If I read it,’’ she 
mused, after wavering between yes and no for an 
hour, ‘‘it shall certainly be the last. As I have 
taken so much pains to find out what he wrote to his 
friend, why shouldn’t I know what he says to her ? 
If it is a horrible crime, isn’t it a proof of love? O 
Albert, am I not your wife ?’’ 

When Rosalie was in bed, she opened the letter, 


ALBERT SAVARUS 121 


which was dated from day to day, thus affording the 
duchess a faithful picture of Albert’s life and emo- 
tions. 


25th. 

‘‘My dear heart, all goes well. I have just added 
a valuable conquest to those I have previously made: 
I have rendered a service to one of the men who are 
most influential in election matters. Like the 
critics, who make reputations without ever succeed- 
ing in making one for themselves, he makes depu- 
ties, but never becomes a deputy himself. The 
good man undertook to manifest his gratitude to me 
at small expense, almost without loosening his purse- 
strings, by saying to me: 

‘Would you like to go to the Chamber? I can 
procure your election as deputy.’ 

“**If I should decide to enter upon a political 
career,’ 1 replied with unblushing hypocrisy, ‘it 
would be to devote myself to the interests of the 
Comté, for I am much attached to the province and 
am appreciated here.’ 

***Very good, we’ll induce you to stand, and 
through you we shall have some influence in the 
Chamber, for you will make your mark there.’ 

“‘And so, my beloved angel, whatever you may 
say, my persistence will gain its crown. In a little 
while I shall speak from the French tribune to my 
country, to Europe. My name will be dinned in 
your ears by the hundred voices of the French 
press! 


122 ALBERT SAVARUS 


“Yes, it is as you say, I was old when I came to 
Besancon, and Besancon has made me still older; 
but like Sextus Fifth I shall be young again on the 
day after my election. I shall enter upon my true 
life, my proper sphere. Shall we not be upon the 
same level then? Comte Savaron de Savarus, am- 
bassador to some court, can certainly marry a Prin- 
cess Soderini, widow of the Duke of Argaiolo! 
Triumph rejuvenates men whose faculties are pre- 
served by incessant conflict O my life! with 
what joy did I rush from my library to my office, to 
stand before your dear portrait, to which I told the 
story of my progress before writing to you. Yes, 
my own votes, the vicar-general’s, those controlled 
by this new client and those of the people | shall find 
an opportunity to accommodate, make my election 
certain already. 


26th. 


‘‘We have entered upon the twelfth year since 
that blissful evening when, by a glance, the lovely 
duchess ratified the proscribed Francesca’s promise. 
Ah! my dear, you are thirty-five; the dear duke is 
seventy-seven, that is to say his age alone is ten 
years greater than both ours together, and he con- 
tinues in good health! Give him my compliments. 
I have almost as much patience as love. Besides, | 
need a few years more to raise my fortunes to the 
level of your name. Iam light-hearted, you see, 
and I can laugh to-day! so much for the effect of a 
hope. Sadness or gaiety, everything comes to me 


ALBERT SAVARUS 123 


from you. The hope of success always carries me 
back to the day following that on which I saw you 
for the first time, when my life was united to yours 
as firmly as the earth to the light. Qual pianto 
these last eleven years, for this is the twenty-sixth 
of December, the anniversary of my arrival at your 
villa on the Lake of Constance. For eleven years 
] have been crying after happiness, and you have 
been shining upon me like a star placed too high for 
any man to reach! 


27th. 

‘‘No, my dear, do not go to Milan, remain at 
Belgirate. Milan terrifies me. I don’t like that 
horrible Milanese custom of talking every evening 
at La Scala with a dozen people, among whom it’s 
hardly possible that there wouldn’t be some one 
who would whisper soft words to you. To my mind 
solitude is like the bit of amber in whose bosom an 
insect lives for ever in its unchangeable beauty. A 
woman’s heart and body thus remain undefiled and 
retain the form they wore in their youth. Do you 
regret the Tedeschi ? 


28th. 


“Will your statue never be done? I would like 
to have you in marble, on canvas, in miniature, in 
every possible shape, to allay my impatience. I 
am still awaiting the view of Belgirate from the 
south, and the one from the balcony; those are the 
only onesI lack. Iam so busy that I can say nothing 


124 ALBERT SAVARUS 


to you to-day but a mere nothing, but that noth- 
ing is everything. Did not God make the world 
from nothing? My nothing is three words, God’s 
words—!/ love you ! 


30th. 

“Ah! I have received your journal! Thanks for 
your promptness! so you derived much pleasure 
from reading the details of our first acquaintance 
thus translated?—Alas! even though | disguised 
them, I was terribly afraid of offending you. We 
had no novels, and a review without novels is a 
pretty girl without hair. Having naturally but lit- 
tle inventive faculty, and being in despair, I seized 
upon the only poetic thought in my mind, the only 
adventure to which my memory clings, I toned it 
down so that it would bear being written, and I 
never ceased for one moment to think of you while 
1 was writing the only literary production that will 
ever come from my heart, I can not say from my 
pen. Did not the transformation of the fierce Sor- 
mano into Gina make you smile? 

**You ask me about my health. It is much better 
than in Paris. Although I work tremendously hard 
the tranquillity of my surroundings has its in- 
fluence upon my mind. The thing that fatigues and 
ages a man, dear angel, is the agony of disappointed 
vanity, the perpetual irritations of Parisian life, the 
struggling with ambitious rivals. Tranquillity is 
like a soothing balsam. If you only knew what 
pleasure your letter gives me, your dear long letter 


ALBERT SAVARUS 125 


in which you describe so fully the most trivial inci- 
dents of your life! No, you will never know, you 
women, how deeply interested a true lover is in such 
trifles. It gave me the keenest pleasure to see the 
sample of your new dress! Is it of no importance to 
me, pray, to know how you are dressed! whether 
your sublime brow is unclouded? whether our 
authors divert you? whether Canalis’s poems stir 
your soul? I read the books you read. There is 
nothing, even to your rowing on the lake, that does 
not move me to tears. Your letter is lovely, sweet 
as your heart. 

“‘O my celestial, ever-adored flower! could I have 
lived without your dear letters which, for eleven 
years, have sustained me in my difficult path, like 
a brilliant light, like a sweet perfume, like meas- 
ured music, like divine sustenance, like everything 
that comforts and gives charm to life! Do not fail 
me! If you knew the agony I suffer the day before I 
should receive them and what torture a delay of a 
single day causes me! Is she ill? or is he? I am 
between hell and paradise, 1 go mad! O mia cara 
diva, continue to devote yourself to music, exercise 
your voice, study. Iam enraptured at the thought 
that our hours are arranged in conformity, so that, 
although separated by the Alps, we live in exactly 
the same way. This thought delights my soul and 
gives me renewed courage. When I argued my first 
case—I haven’t told you this before—I imagined 
that you were listening to me, and I suddenly felt 
within me the inspiration that raises a poet above 


126 ALBERT SAVARUS 


humanity. If Igo to the Chamber, oh! you must 
come to Paris to be present at my first appearance. 


30th, evening. 

‘“‘My God, how I love you! Alas! I have made 
too much depend upon my love and my hopes. 
Any disaster that might capsize that overladen bark 
would carry away my life! It is three years now 
since I have seen you, and at the thought of going 
to Belgirate my heart beats so violently that I am 
forced to stop.—To see you, to hear that childlike, 
caressing voice! to feast my eyes on that ivory-white 
complexion, so brilliant in the light, and beneath 
which one can divine your noble thoughts! to gaze 
with admiration at your fingers playing with the 
keys, to receive your whole soul in a glance, and 
your heart in the accentuation of an Oimé! or an 
Alberto ! to walk together among your orange-trees in 
bloom, to live for a few months in the heart of that 
divinely beautiful landscape.—That would be life 
indeed. Oh! what folly to run after power, a name, 
fortune! Why, everything is at Belgirate; poesy is 
there, and glory. I ought to have become your in- 
' tendant, or, as the dear tyrant we cannot hate pro- 
posed to me, to have taken up my abode with you 
as cicisbeo—a suggestion which our ardent passion did 
not permit us to accept. Adieu, my angel; you will 
forgive me when next I am sad in consideration of 
this light-hearted effusion let fall like a beam of 
light from the torch of hope, which has seemed 
hitherto a mere will-o’-the-wisp.”’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 127 


‘*How he loves her!’’ cried Rosalie, dropping the 
letter which seemed heavy in her hands. ‘‘To 
write in this way after eleven years !—’’ 

‘‘Mariette,’’ said Rosalie to the maid the next 
morning, ‘‘go and put this letter in the post; tell 
Jéréme that I know all I wanted to know, and bid 
him serve Monsieur Albert faithfully. We will 
confess these sins without saying whose letters they 
were or to whom they were going. 1 did wrong, I 
am the only guilty one.’’ 

‘‘Mademoiselle has been weeping,’’ said Mariette. 

“‘Yes, and I don’t wish my mother to notice it; 
give me some cold water.’’ 

Amid the tempests of her passion, Rosalie often 
listened to the voice of her conscience. Deeply 
touched by the marvelous fidelity of those two 
hearts, she had prayed fervently and said to herself 
that there was nothing for her to do but to submit, 
to respect the happiness of two beings worthy of 
each other, resigned to their fate, awaiting God’s 
will, and meanwhile forbidding themselves to 
indulge in criminal acts or desires. She felt a better 
woman, she experienced some internal satisfaction 
after coming to this decision, inspired by the instinct 
of uprightness natural to youth. She was encour- 
aged therein by the girlish reflection that she was 
sacrificing herself for him! 

“*She doesn’t know how to love,’’ she thought. 
*‘Ah! if it were I, I would sacrifice everything 
for a man who would love me so. To be loved!— 
when and by whom shall I be loved? That little 


128 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Monsieur de Soulas cares for nothing but my for- 
tune; if | were poor he wouldn’t take any notice 
of me.”’ 

“Rosalie, my dear, pray what are you thinking 
about? You’re going over the edge,’’ said the bar- 
oness to her daughter, who was making embroidered 
slippers for the baron. 


ae 
# 

Rosalie passed the whole winter of 1834 and 1835 
in a state of secret, intense excitement; but in the 
spring, in April, when she completed her eighteenth 
year, she said to herself at times that it would be 
worth while to get the better of a Duchess of Ar- 
gaiolo. In the silence and solitude the prospect of 
a contest to that end had rekindled her passion and 
her evil thoughts. She fostered in advance the 
development to her romantic audacity by making 
plans upon plans. Although such characters are 
exceptional, unfortunately Rosalies are far too 
numerous, and this story contains a lesson that 
ought to serve as an example to them. During that 
winter Albert de Savarus had made tremendous 
progress in Besancon in a quiet way. Sure of his 
success he was impatiently awaiting the dissolution 
of the Chamber. Among the leading lights of the 
middle class he had made a conquest of one of the 
makers of Besancon, a rich contractor who wielded 
great influence. 

The Romans took a vast amount of pains and 
spent enormous sums of money to procure an unlim- 
ited supply of excellent water for all the cities 
throughout their empire. At Besancon they drank 
water from Arcier, a mountain situated at a consid- 
erable distance from Besancon. Besancon lies on 
the inside of a horseshoe curve described by the 
Doubs. The idea of rebuilding the Roman aqueduct 

9 (129) 


130 ALBERT SAVARUS 


in order to drink the water the Romans drank 
in a city watered by the Doubs is one of those 
absurdities which are possible only in a province 
where the most exemplary gravity holds sway. 
If that whim should take root in the Bisontine heart, 
the city would be obliged to spend large sums, and 
that expenditure would inure to the profit of the in- 
fluential contractor. Albert Savaron de Savarus 
decided that the Doubs was good for nothing but to 
flow under suspension bridges, and that there was 
no drinkable water save that from Arcier. Articles 
appeared in the Revue de l’Est, which simply ex- 
pressed the opinion of the business men of Besancon. 
Nobles and bourgeois, Louis-Phillipists and legiti- 
mists, government and opposition, everybody in 
short were agreed in their determination to drink the 
water the Romans drank and to enjoy a suspension 
bridge. The question of the water from Arcier 
was the order of the day at Besancon. At Besancon, 
as in the case of the two railroads to Versailles, as 
in the case of all existing abuses, there were hidden 
interests which gave abounding vitality to this idea. 
The reasonable people—very few in number, by the 
way—who opposed the project, were called old 
fools. Nothing was talked of but the advocate Sa- 
varon’s twoplans. After eighteen months of toiling 
underground this ambitious mortal had succeeded in 
stirring to its depths the one city in France that 
was the most difficult to move and the most intolerant 
of strangers; he had reached a point where, to use 
a vulgar expression, he could order rain or fine 


ALBERT SAVARUS 131 


weather, and where he exercised a positive influence 
without leaving his own rooms. He had solved the 
strange problem of how to be powerful without pop- 
ularity. During that winter he won seven law- 
suits for ecclesiastics of Besancon. So at times he 
breathed the air of the Chamber in anticipation. 
His heart swelled at the thought of his future 
triumph. This boundless longing, which caused him 
to bring forward so many different interests; to in- 
vent so many motives of action, absorbed the last 
powers of a mind already strained beyond all 
measure. People lauded his disinterestedness, and 
he accepted without comment such fees as his 
clients chose to give him. But this disinterested- 
ness was moral usury, for he expected a price for it 
more considerable than all the gold in the world. 
In October, 1834, with funds furnished by Léopold 
Hannequin, he had purchased a house that gave him 
the necessary qualification for election as deputy, on 
the pretext of rendering a service to a merchant 
who was in some financial embarrassment. This 
desirable investment he neither sought nor desired 
so far as appearances went. 

“*You are a very remarkable man,’’ said the Abbé 
de Grancey to him; it was natural that he should 
watch the advocate and seek to divine his character. 
On this occasion he had called to introduce a canon 
who desired to consult the advocate. 

**You are a priest who has missed his vocation,”’ 
he added. 

This remark impressed Savarus. 


132 ALBERT SAVARUS 


For her part, Rosalie had taken it into her head— 
a wilful head on a frail, girlish body—to lure Mon- 
sieur de Savarus into the salon and introduce him 
to the social circle of the De Rupt mansion. Her 
desires did not as yet go beyond seeing Albert and 
hearing his voice. She had made a compromise 
with them, so to speak, and a compromise is often 
no more than a suspension of hostilities. 

The Rouxeys, the patrimonial estate of the 
Wattevilles, was worth ten thousand francs a year 
net, but in other hands it would have produced 
much more. The careless management of the baron, 
whose wife was to have, and had, an income of forty 
thousand francs, left the Rouxeys in charge of a sort 
of Master Jacques, an old servant of the Watteville 
family, named Modinier. Nevertheless, when the 
baron and baroness wished to go into the country, 
they went to the Rouxeys, which is very pic- 
turesquely situated. The chateau, the park, every- 
thing is the creation of the famous Watteville, who 
became passionately fond of this magnificent spot in 
his active old age. 

Between two small mountains, whose summits 
are entirely bare, called the Great and Little 
Rouxey, in the centre of a defile, closed by the 
Dent de Vilard, through which the streams from 
these mountains rush down to join the cool, deli- 
cious springs that feed the Doubs, Watteville con- 
ceived the plan of building an enormous dam, 
leaving two waste-weirs for the overflow. Above 
the dam he obtained a charming lake, and below, 


ALBERT SAVARUS 133 


two cascades which joined forces just below their 
bases and fed a fascinating stream with which he 
watered the dry, uncultivated valley that was 
formerly laid waste by the torrent from the Rouxeys. 
The lake, the valley and its two mountains he en- 
closed with a wall, and built himself a country- 
house by the dam, which he had made to cover 
three acres of ground by adding to it all the earth 
that had to be removed when he dug the bed of his 
river and his irrigating canals. When the Baron 
de Watteville formed the lake above his dam he was 
the owner of the two Rouxeys, but not of the upper 
valley which he also inundated—a valley which had 
always been used as a thoroughfare and which ends 
in a horseshoe at the foot of the Dent de Vilard. 
But the savage old fellow was such an object of ter- 
ror that, so long as he lived, no claim was ever made 
on behalf of the inhabitants of Riceys, a small vil- 
lage situated on the other side of the Dent de 
Vilard. When the baron died he had connected the 
slopes of the two Rouxeys, at the foot of the Dent 
de Vilard, by a stout wall, in order not to inundate 
the two valleys which entered the defile of the 
Rouxeys to the right and left of that peak. He died 
having thus taken possession of the Dent de Vilard. 
His successors assumed a sort of protectorate over 
the village of Riceys and thus continued the usurpa- 
tion. The old murderer, the old renegade, the old 
Abbé de Watteville brought his career to an end by 
planting trees, by building a magnificent road around 
the flank of one of the two Rouxeys to join the high 


134 ALBERT SAVARUS 


road. Appurtenant to the park and the country- 
house were extensive estates in a wretched state of 
cultivation, chalets on the two mountains, and 
primeval forests. It was wild and lonely, with no 
other keeper than nature, abandoned to the hazards 
of vegetation, but full of sublime inequalities. Now 
you can form some idea of the Rouxeys. 

It is altogether useless to embarrass this narrative 
by recounting the prodigious efforts and the strata- 
gems bearing the stamp of genius by which Rosalie 
attained her object without allowing it to be sus- 
pected; suffice it to say that she obeyed her mother 
when she left Besancon in May, 1835, in an old ber- 
lin drawn by two big, fat, hired horses, on her way 
to the Rouxeys with her father. 

Love interprets everything to young girls. When 
Rosalie left her bed on the morning following her 
arrival at Rouxeys, and saw from her chamber win- 
dow the lovely sheet of water over which the smoke- 
like vapors hovered, floating in among the firs and 
larches and crawling up the sides of the two peaks 
to reach their summits, she uttered a cry of admi- 
ration. 

*« They fell in love beside a lake! She is living 
by a lake! Certainly a lake is the place for 
love.’’ 

A lake fed by mountain snows has an opal tint 
and a transparent quality that make it one vast dia- 
mond; but when it is confined like that at the 
Rouxeys between two blocks of fir-covered granite, 
when all is silence round about—the silence of the 


ALBERT SAVARUS 135 


savannahs or the steppes—it extorts from every 
mouth the cry that Rosalie uttered. 

‘‘We owe all this to the famous Watteville!’’ said 
her father. 

‘‘Upon my word,’’ said the girl, “‘he determined 
to earn forgiveness for his sins. Let us take the 
boat and go to the end of the lake,’’ she added; 
‘‘we shall get an appetite for breakfast.’’ 

The baron sent for two young gardeners who knew 
how to row, and took with him his prime minister, 
Modinier. The lake was six acres wide, sometimes 
ten or twelve, and four hundred acres long. Rosalie 
soon reached the end of it at the foot of the Dent de 
Vilard, the Jungfrau of this miniature Switzerland. 

‘‘Here we are, Monsieur le Baron,’’ said Modinier, 
motioning to the two gardeners to make the boat 
fast; ‘‘would you like to come and look ?—”’ 

“Look at what?’’ asked Rosalie. 

“Oh! nothing,’’ said the baron. ‘‘But you area 
discreet girl and we have secrets together, so I can 
safely tell you what is disturbing my mind: in 1830 
trouble began between the village of Riceys and 
myself, on account of this Dent de Vilard, and | 
would like to settle it without letting your mother 
know anything about it; for she’s pretty obstinate, 
she is quite capable of flying into a rage especially 
when she learns that the mayor of Riceys, a repub- 
lican, invented this claim to flatter his people.’’ 

Rosalie had the courage to disguise her joy, in 
order to manage her father better. 

‘*What claim?’’ said she. 


136 ALBERT SAVARUS 


‘‘Mademoiselle,’’ said Modinier, ‘‘the people of 
Riceys have long had the right of pasturage and of 
cutting wood on their side of the Dent de Vilard. 
Now Monsieur Chantonnit, their mayor since 1830, 
claims that the whole mountain belongs to his com- 
mune, and insists that over a hundred years ago 
they had a right of way over our property.—You 
understand that in that case we should no longer be 
on our own land. Then that savage would eventu- 
ally say what the old inhabitants of Riceys say, 
that the land under the lake was stolen by the Abbé 
de Watteville. That means death to the Rouxeys, 
you know!”’ 

‘‘Alas! my child, between ourselves it is true,’’ 
said Monsieur de Watteville ingenuously. ‘‘This 
estate is a usurpation confirmed by time. So, in 
order not to be annoyed about it forever, | would like 
to propose that we come to an amicable agreement 
as to my boundaries on this side of the Dent de 
Vilard, and then I’d build a wall there.’’ 

“If you yield an inch to the republic, it will 
swallow you. It was your place to threaten 
Riceys.”’ 

“‘That’s just what I was saying to monsieur last 
evening,’? said Modinier. ‘‘But, in order to 
strengthen my argument, I suggested to him to 
come and see if there wasn’t some trace of a bound- 
ary wall on one side or the other, at some level.’’ 

For a hundred years past there had been more or 
less exploitation on both sides of the Dent de Vilard, 
that sort of party wall between the village of Riceys 


ALBERT SAVARUS 137 


and the Rouxeys, but it had had no particular result 
and had never been carried to extremes. The sub- 
ject of dispute, being covered with snow during six 
months of the year, was well calculated to keep the 
question cool. So nothing less than the ardor 
breathed into the defenders of the people by the 
Revolution of 1830 was sufficient to stir up this 
affair, by means of which Monsieur Chantonnit, 
mayor of Riceys, hoped to give dramatic interest to 
his existence upon the tranquil Swiss frontier and 
toimmortalize his administration. Chantonnit, as 
his name implies, was a native of Neufchatel. 

‘*My dear father,’’ said Rosalie as they returned 
to the boat, ‘‘I agree with Modinier. If you want 
to have your way as to the division line on the 
Dent de Vilard, it is necessary to act with vigor, 
and to obtain a judgment that will put you out of 
reach of this Chantonnit’s manceuvres. Why 
should you be afraid, pray? Retain the famous 
Savaron for your advocate, do it quickly so that 
Chantonnit may not retain him in behalf of his 
commune. The man who won the suit of the chap- 
ter against the city will surely win that of the 
Wattevilles against Riceys! Besides,’? she con- 
tinued, ‘“‘the Rouxeys will be mine some day—that 
day will be postponed as long as possible, I hope— 
so don’t leave me with a lawsuit on my hands. I 
love this estate and I shall live here often and add 
to itas much as I can. Iwill lay out parks on those 
shores,’’ she said, pointing to the lower slopes of the 
two Rouxeys, ‘‘and | will have some lovely English 


138 ALBERT SAVARUS 


flower-gardens there. Let us go to Besancon and 
not return without Abbé de Grancey, Monsieur 
Savaron and mother if she chooses to come. Then 
you can make up your mind what to do; but if | 
were in your place | should have decided already. 
Your name is Watteville and you’re afraid of a fight! 
If you lose the lawsuit—why, I will never say a 
single reproachful word.”’ 

“Oh! if you look at it in that light,’’ said the 
baron, ‘‘I’m perfectly willing; 1’ll see the advocate.”’ 

‘‘Besides a lawsuit’s very entertaining. It gives 
a zest to life to have people going and coming and 
bustling about. Won’t you have a thousand things 
to do before you get to the judges ?—We have not 
seen Abbé de Grancey for more than three weeks, he 
was sc busy!’’ 

‘‘But the whole existence of the chapter was at 
stake,’’ said Monsieur de Watteville. ‘‘Then, too, 
the archbishop’s self-esteem and his conscience and 
everything that keeps a priest alive was involved 
in the suit! Savaron doesn’t know how much he 
did for the chapter! he saved its life.’’ 

‘Listen to me,’’ she whispered; ‘‘if you have 
Monsieur Savaron on your side your case will be as 
good as won, won’t it? Very well, let me give you 
a piece of advice; you can’t get Monsieur Savaron 
to act for you except through Monsieur de Grancey. 
If you take my advice we will go together to speak 
to the dear abbé and not have mother present at the 
conference, for | know a way to induce him to bring 
Savaron the advocate to us.”’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 139 


“It will be very hard not to mention it to your 
mother !’’ 

‘‘Abbé de Grancey will do that later; but you 
just make up your mind to promise your vote to 
Savaron at the approaching elections, and you’ll 
see !’’ 

‘*Go to the polls! take the oath!’ cried Baron de 
Watteville. 

‘*Bah!’’ said she. 

‘‘What will your mother say ?”’ 

“‘Perhaps she’ll order you to do it,’’ replied Ro- 
salie, who knew from Albert’s letter to Léopold what 
the vicar-general had undertaken to do. 


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Four days later, the Abbé de Grancey called upon 
Albert de Savarus very early in the morning, having 
advised him of his purpose the day before. The old 
priest came to win over the great advocate to the 
interests of the Watteville family, astep that shows 
what tact and shrewdness Rosalie had secretly 
developed. 

‘‘What can I do to serve you, Monsieur le Vicaire- 
Général ?’”’ said Savarus. 

The abbé, as he set forth glibly and with admi- 
rable simplicity the details of the affair, was listened 
to with marked coldness by Albert. 

‘Monsieur |’Abbé,”’ he replied, ‘‘it is impossible 
for me to undertake to defend the interests of the 
Watteville family, for reasons which you will un- 
derstand directly. My rdle in this place consists in 
maintaining the most scrupulous neutrality. I do 
not choose to take any color, but to remain an 
enigma until the eve of my election. To try a case 
for the Wattevilles would be nothing at all at 
Paris; but here!—Here, where everything is com- 
mented on, I should be universally looked upon as 
the man employed by your Faubourg Saint-Ger- 
main.’’ 

‘*What!’’ said the abbé, ‘‘do you suppose you can 
remain unknown, when the candidates attack one 

(141) 


142 ALBERT SAVARUS 


another on election day? Why then they’ll know 
that your name is Savaron de Savarus, that you 
have been master of requests, that you’re a par- 
tisan of the Restoration !’’ 

**On election day,’’ said Savarus, ‘‘I shall be all 
that it’s necessary for me to be. I expect to speak 
at the preliminary meetings—”’ 

“‘If Monsieur de Watteville and his party should 
support you, you would have a compact body of a 
hundred votes, a little more reliable than those you 
depend on. One can always sow discord among 
selfish interests, but one cannot separate those who 
are united by their convictions.”’ 

**Deuce take it!’’ rejoined Savarus, ‘‘I love you 
and can do much for you, my father! Perhaps there 
are ways of compromising with the devil. What- 
ever Monsieur de Watteville’s case may be, the trial 
can be postponed until after the elections, by retain- 
ing Girardet and steering him properly. 1 will not 
undertake to argue the case until the day after my 
election.’’ 

‘Do this one thing,’’ said the abbé, ‘‘come to the 
De Rupt house; there’s a little lady of eighteen 
there, who will have a hundred thousand a year in 
due time, and you can appear to pay court to her—’’ 

‘fAh! the young girl I often see on yonder sum- 
mer-house—’’ 

“*Yes, Mademoiselle Rosalie,’’ replied the abbé. 
**You are ambitious. If you should take her fancy 
you might be all that an ambitious man longs to be: 
a minister. A man always becomes a minister 


ALBERT SAVARUS 143 


when he combines your marvelous faculties with an 
income of a hundred thousand francs. ’’ 

‘*Monsieur I’Abbé,’’ said Albert hastily, ‘‘if Ma- 
demoiselle de Watteville were three times richer 
than she is, and if she worshiped me, it would be 
impossible for me to marry her.’’— 

‘*Are you married?’ exclaimed Abbé de Gran- 
cey. 

‘‘Not at the church, not at the mayor’s office,’’ 
said Savarus, ‘‘but morally.’’ 

‘““That’s even worse, when one thinks so much of 
it as you seem to do,’’ rejoined the abbé. ‘‘What- 
ever is not done can be undone. Do not rest your 
fortune and your plans upon a woman’s will, any 
more than a wise man waits for a dead-man’s shoes 
before beginning his journey.’’ 

‘‘Let us drop the subject of Mademoiselle de 
Watteville,’’ said Albert gravely, ‘‘and agree upon 
our facts. For your sake, whom I love and re- 
spect, | will try Monsieur de Watteville’s case after 
the elections. Until then his matters will be 
attended to by Girardet acting under my advice. 
That is all | can do.’’ 

‘*But there are questions that cannot be decided 
except by inspection of the localities,’’ said the 
vicar-general. 

‘*Girardet can go,’? Savarus replied. ‘‘Hereina 
city that | know so well, | prefer not to venture 
upon a step calculated to endanger the enormous in- 
terests that depend upon my election.’’ 

The Abbé de Grancey took his leave of Savarus, 


144 ALBERT SAVARUS 


bestowing upon him a shrewd glance whereby he 
seemed to laugh at the young athlete’s determined 
politics, while admiring his resolution. 

**Ah! I have involved my father in a lawsuit, | 
have struggled so to bring him to this house!’’ said 
Rosalie to herself as she watched the advocate in 
his office from the top of the summer-house on the 
day following the conference between Albert and 
Abbé de Grancey, the result of which had been 
communicated to her by her father; ‘‘ah! I have 
committed deadly sins, and you will not come to 
our salon, and | shall not hear your melodious voice ? 
You place conditions upon your services when the 
Wattevilles and the De Rupts request them! Ah 
well! God knows I would have been content with 
small blessings; to see you and hear your voice, to 
go to the Rouxeys with you so that they might be 
sanctified in my sight by your presence—I asked no 
more than that—But now, I will be your wife!— 
Yes, yes, look at her portrait, examine her salons, 
her chamber, the four sides of her villa, the views 
from her gardens. You are waiting for her statue! 
I will make her like marble itself to you!—That 
woman doesn’t love. Arts and sciences, literature, 
singing, music have taken half of her feelings and 
her intelligence. She is old, too, she’s over thirty, 
and my Albert would be unhappy!’ 

“‘What’s the matter with you that you stay 
here, Rosalie?’ said her mother breaking in upon 
her daughter’s reflections. ‘‘Monsieur de Soulas 
is in the salon, and he noticed your attitude, which 


ALBERT SAVARUS 145 


certainly denotes more profound thought than a girl 
of your age should indulge in.’’ 

‘Is Monsieur de Soulas an enemy of thought?’’ 
she asked. 

‘*So you were thinking, were you?’’ demanded 
Madame de Watteville. 

‘‘Why, yes, mamma.”’ 

‘‘No, you weren’t thinking. You were looking at 
that advocate’s windows with an interest which is 
neither proper nor modest, and which Monsieur de 
Soulas of all men ought not to detect.’’ 

‘Eh! why so?’’ said Rosalie. 

‘‘Why,’’ said the baroness, ‘‘it’s high time that 
you should be informed of our plans; Amédée finds 
you to his liking, and you will be very lucky to be 
Comtesse de Soulas.’’ 

Rosalie turned pale as a lily, but she made no 
reply to her mother, to such a degree did the vio- 
lence of her outraged feelings deaden her faculties. 
But when she stood before the man whom she 
had begun to hate bitterly an instant before, she 
mustered up such a smile as ballet-dancers wear in 
public. She was able to laugh, she had the strength 
to conceal her rage, which gradually lost its fury, 
for she determined to use this fat, dull-witted youth 
to forward her plans. 

‘‘Monsieur Amédée,’’ said she, when the baroness 
went on ahead of them into the garden, making a 
great show of leaving the young people alone, ‘‘didn’t 
you know that Monsieur Albert Savaron de Savarus 
is a legitimist?’’ 

Io 


146 ALBERT SAVARUS 


“Legitimist ?”’ 

‘‘Before 1830 he was master of requests to the 
Council of State, connected with the office of the 
president of the Council of Ministers, and high in 
favor with the Dauphin and Dauphine. It would 
have been well for you not to speak ill of him; but 
it would be still better to go to the polls this year, 
present his name, and prevent poor Monsieur de 
Chavoncourt from representing the city of Besan- 
¢on.”’ 

‘‘What’s the occasion of the sudden interest you 
take in this Savaron ?’’ 

‘‘Monsieur Albert de Savarus, natural son of the 
Comte de Savarus—oh! pray don’t betray the 
secret of my indiscretion—will be our advocate in 
the matter of the Rouxeys if he’s elected deputy. 
The Rouxeys will belong to me, so my father tells 
me; I want to live there, for it’s a fascinating place! 
I should be in despair to see that magnificent crea- 
tion of the great Watteville destroyed—”’ 

‘* Diantre,’’ said Amédée to himself, as he left the 
De Rupt mansion, ‘‘that girl’s no fool.’’ 


* 


Monsieur de Chavoncourt was a royalist—one of 
the famous two hundred and twenty-one. And on 
the morrow of the Revolution of July he preached 
the salutary doctrine of taking the oath of allegiance 
and struggling against the existing order of things, 
after the fashion of the Tories against the Whigs in 
England. This doctrine was not well received by 
the legitimists, who, in defeat, knew no better than 
to entertain divergent opinions and to rely upon the 
force of inertia and upon Providence. Being an 
object of suspicion to his own party, Monsieur de 
Chavoncourt seemed to the partisans of the govern- 
ment of Louis-Philippe a most excellent choice to 
make; they preferred the triumph of his moderate 
opinions to the jubilation of a republican who polled 
the combined vote of the enthusiasts and the 
patriots. Monsieur de Chavoncourt, a man much 
esteemed in Besancon, represented an old parlia- 
mentary family; his fortune, amounting to about 
fifteen thousand francs a year, offended no one, 
especially as he had a son and three daughters. 
Fifteen thousand francs a year amount to nothing 
with such burdens. Now, when the father of a 
family remains incorruptible under such circum- 
stances, it would be strange if the electors did not 
esteem him. Electors are as passionately interested 
in the beau ideal of parliamentary virtue, as the pit 

(147) 


148 ALBERT SAVARUS 


in the portrayal of generous sentiments to which it 
is little addicted in practice. Madame de Chavon- 
court, at this time about forty years old, was one 
of the beautiful women of Besancon. During the 
sessions of the Chamber, she lived quietly on one of 
her estates in the country in order to save enough to 
meet Monsieur de Chavoncourt’s expenses in Paris. 
In winter she received becomingly one day each 
week—Tuesday—and she thoroughly understood her 
duties as mistress of the house. Young Chavon- 
court, then twenty-two, and another young gentle- 
man, Monsieur de Vauchelles, not much richer than 
Amédée, whose college chum he had been, were 
extremely intimate. They rode together to Gran- 
velle, they sometimes hunted together; they were so 
well known to be inseparable that people invited 
them into the country together. Rosalie through 
her intimacy with the Chavoncourt girls knew that 
these three young men had no secrets from one 
another. She said to herself, that, if Monsieur de 
Soulas did betray her secret, it would be to his two 
intimate friends. Now, Monsieur de Vauchelles had 
his plans made for his own marriage, as Amédée 
had for his: he proposed to marry Victoire, the 
oldest of the littlhe Chavoncourts, to whom an old 
aunt was to promise an estate worth seven thousand 
francs a year and a hundred thousand in cash, in 
the contract. Victoire was this aunt’s goddaughter 
and favorite. It seemed certain, therefore, that 
young Chavoncourt and Vauchelles would warn 
Monsieur de Chavoncourt of the risk he ran from 


ALBERT SAVARUS 149 


Albert’s pretensions. But this was not enough for 
Rosalie; she wrote with her left hand to the prefect 
of the department an anonymous letter signed A 
Friend of Louis-Philippe, in which she told him of 
the undisclosed candidacy of Monsieur Albert de 
Savarus, reminding him of the dangerous assistance 
a royalist orator might afford Berryer, and describ- 
ing the advocate’s crafty conduct at Besancon for 
the last two years. The prefect was a clever man, 
a personal enemy of the royalist faction, and de- 
voted from conviction to the government of July— 
in a word, one of those men of whom they say on 
Rue de Grenelle, at the Department of the Interior: 
‘“‘We have a good prefect at Besancgon.’’ This 
prefect read the letter and then burned it, as he was 
requested to do. 

Rosalie’s object was to cause Albert to fail of 
election, in order to keep him at Besancon five 
years more. 

The elections in those days were a struggle be- 
tween the opposing parties, and in order to ensure 
its triumph, the ministry chose its own ground by 
selecting its own moment for the struggle. So it 
happened that the elections were not to take place 
for three months. When a man waits all his life 
for an election, the time that passes between the 
issuance of the order convoking the electoral colleges 
and the day fixed for the performance of their duties, 
is a period during which the ordinary affairs of life 
are in a state of suspense. So Rosalie realized how 
much latitude Albert’s pre-occupation during those 


150 ALBERT SAVARUS 


three months would allow her. She induced Mari- 
ette—whom, as she afterwards confessed, she 
promised to take with Jéréme, into her service, —to 
hand her the letters Albert sent to Italy and those 
that came to him from that country. And while she 
was putting these schemes of hers in operation, this 
amazing creature embroidered slippers for her father 
with the most guileless air imaginable. Indeed she 
redoubled her affectation of candor and innocence 
when she realized what good service her candid and 
innocent air might render her. 

“fRosalie’s getting to be a charming girl,’’ said 
the Baronne de Watteville. 

Two months before the election a meeting was 
held at the house of Monsieur Boucher Senior, 
attended by the contractor who was counting upon 
building the bridge and the Arcier waterworks, by 
Monsieur Boucher’s father-in-law, by Monsieur 
Granet, the influential personage to whom Savarus 
had rendered some service and who was to propose 
him as a candidate, by the solicitor Girardet; by 
the printer of the Revue de l’Est and the president 
of the Tribunal of Commerce. There were at this 
meeting twenty-seven in all of those persons who 
are called in the provinces the bigwigs. Each of 
them represented six votes on an average; but, on 
counting up, the average was increased to ten, for 
men always begin by exaggerating their influence 
to themselves. Among these twenty-seven persons 
the prefect had one man of his own, some false 
brother who was secretly expecting a favor from the 


ALBERT SAVARUS ISI 


ministry for himself or some of his kindred. At 
this first meeting they agreed, with a degree of en- 
thusiasm which no one could have hoped to see at 
Besancon, to put forward Savaron the advocate as a 
candidate. Albert was at home waiting for Alfred 
Boucher to come for him, and talking meanwhile with 
the Abbé de Grancey, who was deeply interested 
in this far-reaching ambition. Albert had come to 
realize the immense talents of the priest, and the 
priest, moved by the younger man’s entreaties, had 
consented to act as his guide and counselor in this 
supreme conflict. The chapter did not love Mon- 
sieur de Chavoncourt; for his wife’s brother-in-law, 
who was president of the tribunal, had decided the 
famous lawsuit adversely in the first instance. 

**You are betrayed, my dear child,’’ the shrewd 
and venerable abbé was saying in that calm, sweet 
voice which elderly priests assume. 

‘*Betrayed!—’’ cried the lover, with a sharp pain 
at his heart. 

‘*By whom, I have no idea,’’ replied the priest. 
“The prefecture is acquainted with your plans, and 
canread your game. Icannotat this moment advise 
you. Such matters have to be studied. As far as 
the meeting this evening is concerned go forward to 
meet the blows that will be aimed at you. Tell 
them the whole story of your past life, and in that 
way you will lessen the effect this discovery might 
have upon the Bisontines.’’ 

‘‘Oh! | expected this,’’ said Savarus in a falter- 
ing voice, 


152 ALBERT SAVARUS 


**You did not choose to take my advice; you had 
an opportunity to make your appearance at the De 
Rupt mansion, and you don’t know what you would 
have gained by so doing—’’ 

**What?”’ 

‘‘The unanimous vote of the royalists, a momen- 
tary agreement among them to go to the polls—in 
short, more than a hundred votes! Adding to those 
what we call among ourselves the ecclesiastical vote, 
you would not have been absolutely elected perhaps, 
but you would have occupied the most advantageous 
position when it came to a ballot. In such casea 
man makes terms, and succeeds—”’ 

At that moment Alfred Boucher entered, bubbling 
over with enthusiasm, and made known the decision 
of the meeting; he found the vicar-general and the 
advocate calm, serious and unmoved. 

‘‘Farewell, Monsieur l’Abbé,”’ said Albert; ‘‘we 
will look into this matter of yours more thoroughly 
after the elections.’’ 

The advocate took Alfred’s arm after exchanging 
a significant grasp of the hand with Monsieur de 
Grancey. The priest looked after the ambitious 
youth, whose face wore the sublime expression that 
a general’s face must wear when he hears the first 
cannon shot of a great battle. He raised his eyes 
to heaven and left the room, saying: 

‘‘What a fine priest he would make!’’ 


* 


True eloquence is not found at the bar. The 
advocate rarely brings into play there the whole 
force of his soul; were it not so he would die in a 
very few years. Eloquence is rarely heard in the 
pulpit to-day; but it is heard at certain sittings of 
the Chamber of Deputies where the ambitious man 
stakes everything to win everything; where, stung 
by a thousand arrows, he bursts forth at a critical 
moment. But it may be heard even more certainly 
in the mouths of some privileged beings at the cru- 
cial moment when their aspirations are to meet with 
failure or success, and when they are forced to 
speak. So it was that, at the meeting in question, 
Albert Savarus, alive to the necessity of making 
converts to his cause, displayed all the faculties of 
his soul, all the resources of his intellect in their 
fullest development. He entered the salon, without 
awkwardness or arrogance, gravely, with no sign of 
weakness or dismay, and displayed no surprise upon 
finding himself in the presence of some thirty or 
more persons. The report of the meeting and its 
decision had already brought some few docile sheep 
to the fold. Before listening to Monsieur Boucher, 
who was anxious to deliver a speech at him apropos 
of the resolution of the Boucher committee, Albert 
requested silence by a sign, and pressed Monsieur 
Boucher’s hand, as if to warn him of a danger that 
had suddenly arisen. 

(153) 


154 ALBERT SAVARUS 


“My young friend Alfred Boucher has just in- 
formed me of the honor that has been conferred upon 
me. But before this decision becomes irrevoca- 
ble,’’ said the advocate, ‘‘I think it my duty to ex- 
plain to you who your candidate is, in order to 
leave you at liberty to withdraw your pledges if my 
declarations should disturb your consciences.”’ 

This exordium had the effect of producing abso- 
lute silence. Some of those present deemed this a 
noble proceeding. 

Albert went on to describe his past life, telling 
them his real. name, what he had done under the 
Restoration, declaring that he had become a new 
man since his arrival at Besancon and making 
pledges for the future. This improvised harangue, 
it was said, kept his audience in breathless excite- 
ment. These men, whose interests were so varied, 
were fairly subjugated by the wonderful eloquence 
that came rushing forth from the ambitious advo- 
cate’s heart and soul. Admiration prevented reflec- 
tion. They understood but one thing, and that was 
whatever Albert chose to put in their heads. 

Was it not better for a city to be represented by 
one of the men who are destined to govern society 
from top to bottom, than a mere voting-machine! 
A statesman is a power in himself; a deputy of 
mediocre parts, though he be incorruptible, is only 
a conscience. What a glorious thing for Provence 
to have divined the power of Mirabeau, to have sent 
since 1830 the only statesman produced by the Rev- 
olution of July! 


ALBERT SAVARUS 155 


Under the spell of this eloquence, all who listened 
to it believed it to be powerful enough to become a 
magnificent political instrument to be wielded by 
their representative. They all saw Savarus the 
minister in Albert Savaron. Divining the secret 
thoughts of his hearers, the adroit candidate gave 
them to understand that they would have the first 
claim to make use of his influence. 

This profession of faith, this declaration of ambi- 
tion, this narrative of his life and character, was, 
in the opinion of the only man capable of passing 
judgment upon Savarus, and who has since become 
one of the shining lights of Besancon, a masterpiece 
of address, of sentiment, of emotion, of interest, of 
fascination. The electors were enveloped in the 
whirlwind. No man ever had such a triumph. 
But, unfortunately, words, which are a sort of 
close-range weapon, have only a temporary effect. 
Reflection kills the word, when the word has 
not triumphed over reflection. If they had voted 
then, Albert’s name would certainly have headed 
the poll! For the moment the victory was his. 
But he must continue to win a similar victory 
every day for two months. Albert left the meet- 
ing with a fast-beating heart. Applauded by the 
Bisontines, he had achieved the great result of 
nullifying in advance the unkind remarks which 
his antecedents might call forth. The business 
interests of Besancon adopted the advocate Sav- 
aron de Savarus as their candidate. Alfred Bou- 
cher’s enthusiasm, which was contagious at first, 


156 ALBERT SAVARUS 


was destined to prove a disadvantage in the 
long run. 

The prefect, dismayed by this triumph, set about 
counting up the ministerial votes, and succeeded in 
arranging a secret interview with Monsieur de 
Chavoncourt, with a view of effecting a coalition in 
the interests of both. Every day, by some means 
that Albert could not fathom, the votes of the Boucher 
committee diminished in number. A month before 
the election Albert found that he had hardly sixty 
votes. Nothing could resist the slow pressure of 
the prefecture. Three or four clever men went 
about saying to Savarus’s clients: 

“*Will the deputy try your cases and win them for 
you? will he give you advice? will he settle your 
disputes and draw up your agreements? You will 
have him for your slave five years longer if, instead 
of sending him to the Chamber, you simply give 
him the hope of going there five years hence.’’ 

This argument was the more injurious to Savarus, 
in that several of the merchants’ wives had already 
used it. The parties who were interested in the 
matter of the bridge and the Arcier aqueduct did 
not decline a conference with a shrewd agent of 
the ministerial party, who proved to them that 
their interests would be safer with the prefecture 
than in the hands of an ambitious stranger. Every 
day resulted in a defeat for Albert, although 
every day the battle was directed by him, but 
sold out by his lieutenants—a battle of words and 
speeches and manceuvring. He dared not call on the 


ALBERT SAVARUS 157 


vicar-general and the vicar-general did not make his 
appearance. Albert rose and went to bed with his 
brain on fire and fever in his blood. At last came 
the day of the first struggle, what is called a pre- 
liminary meeting, at which the votes are counted, 
candidates reckon up their chances, and the know- 
ing ones can sometimes forecast success or failure. 
It is a hustings scene, orderly, without a mob, but 
most impressive: the emotion is none the less pro- 
found because it does not find expression in physi- 
cal force as in England. The English do things 
with blows of the fist; in France they use blows of 
the tongue. Our neighbors have a battle; the 
French play a game of cold-blooded schemes, calmly 
worked out. The two nations seem to exchange 
characters in going through with this political pro- 
cess. The radical party had its candidate; Mon- 
sieur de Chavoncourt was proposed; then came 
Albert, who was accused by the radicals and the 
Chavoncourt committee of being an uncompromising 
partisan of the Right, a duplicate of Berryer. The 
ministry had its candidate, a figurehead, who served 
to hold together the purely ministerial votes. The 
votes being thus divided, no result was reached. 
The republican candidate had twenty, the ministry 
got together fifty, Albert had seventy and Monsieur 
de Chavoncourt sixty-seven. But the perfidious 
prefecture had caused thirty of its most devoted ad- 
herents to cast their votes for Albert in order to 
deceive him. Monsieur de Chavoncourt’s votes, 
added to the eighty the prefecture really controlled, 


158 ALBERT SAVARUS 


held the key to the situation, if only the prefect 
could succeed in luring a few votes away from the 
radical candidate. A hundred and sixty votes were 
unaccounted for, Monsieur de Graneey’s and those of 
the legitimist party. A preliminary meeting is to 
an election what a dress rehearsal is to a theatrical 
performance, the most deceitful thing in the world. 
Albert Savarus returned home with a brave face, but 
sick at heart. In the last fortnight he had had the 
wit, the genius or the good luck to win over two 
devoted adherents, Girardet’s father-in-law, and a 
very shrewd old merchant to whom Monsieur de 
Grancey sent him. These two worthy men, acting 
as his spies, appeared to be his bitterest enemies in 
the opposite camp. Toward the close of the prelim- 
inary meeting they informed Savarus, through Mon- 
sieur Boucher, that thirty voters whom they did not 
know were playing the same part in his ranks, that 
they themselves were playing with his opponents. 
A criminal on his way to the scaffold does not suffer 
what Albert suffered when he returned home from 
the hall where his future was at stake. The lover 
in despair, refused to let any one accompany him. 
He walked through the streets alone between eleven 
o’clock and midnight. 

At one o’clock in the morning Albert, who had 
not slept for three days, was seated in his library 
upon a Voltaire easy-chair, his face as pale as if he 
were dying, his hands listlessly hanging at his 
sides, in a despairing attitude worthy of the Mag- 
dalen. Tears were flowing beneath his long lashes, 


ALBERT SAVARUS 159 


tears of the sort that moisten the eyes but do not 
roll down the cheeks; the mind drinks them up, the 
fire in the heart consumes them! He was alone and 
could weep. He saw in the belvedere a white figure 
that reminded him of Francesca. 

‘*And it is three months since I received a letter 
from her! What has become of her? I did not 
write to her for two months, but I told her that I 
should not. Is she ill? O my love! O my life! 
will you ever know what I have suffered? Whata 
fatal temperament is mine! Have! an aneurism ?”’ 
he asked himself, feeling his heart beat so violently 
that its pulsations were audible in the silence as if 
grains of sand were being dropped upon a drum. 

At that moment there were three gentle knocks at 
Albert’s door; he hurried to open it, and was near 
fainting with joy when he saw the vicar-general 
with a jovial expression, an expression of triurnph 
on his face. He seized the abbé without uttering 
a word, took him in his arms, pressed him to his 
heart, letting his head fall on the old man’s shoulder. 
And he became a child once more, he wept as he 
wept when he learned that Francesca Soderini was 
married. He gave no sign of his weakness except 
to this priest, whose face was beaming with hope. 
The priest had been sublime and no less shrewd 
than sublime. 

‘Forgive me, dear abbé, but you have come at 
one of those supreme moments when the man dis- 
appears, for do not deem me a mere vulgar ambi- 
tious creature.’’ 


160 ALBERT SAVARUS 


“‘Oh! I know,’’ rejoined the abbé, ‘‘you wrote 
Ambitious through Love! Ah! my child, it was a 
lover’s despair that made me a priest in 1786, at 
twenty-two. In 17881 was a curé. I know what 
life is. 1 have already refused three bishoprics, for 
I wish to die at Besancon.”’ 

‘Come and see her! ’’ cried Savarus, seizing the 
candle and leading the abbé into the magnificently- 
furnished office where the portrait of the Duchess 
of Argaiolo was hanging; he held the light, so that 
it fell upon the face. 

“‘She is one of the women who were born to 
reign!’’ said the vicar, appreciating the affec- 
tion for himself that this silent confidence from 
Albert implied. ‘‘But there is a world of pride 
upon that brow; it is implacable, it would never 
pardon an affront! It is Michael the archangel, 
the angel of execution, the inflexible angel—All 
or nothing! is the motto of such angelic charac- 
ters. There is something divinely savage in that 
head !’’ 

**You have rightly divined her character,’’ cried 
Savarus. ‘‘But, my dear abbé, for more than 
twelve years she has reigned over my life and | 
haven’t a single thought for which to reproach 
myself—’”’ 

‘*Ah! if you had done as much for God!’’ said 
the abbé frankly. ‘‘Let us talk of your affairs. 
For ten days I have been at work for you. If you 
are a true politician, you will follow my advice this 
time. You wouldn’t be where you are now if you 


THE ABBE DE GRANCEY AND SAVARUS 


He seized the abbé without uttering a word, took 
him in his arms, pressed him to his heart, letting 
his head fall on the old man’s shoulder. And he 
became a child once more, he wept as he wept when 
he learned that Francesca Soderini was married. 
He gave no sign of his weakness except to this priest, 
whose face was beaming with hope. The priest had 


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ALBERT SAVARUS 161 


had gone to the De Rupt house when I told you to; 
but you will go to-morrow, I will present you there 
in the evening. The Rouxeys estate is threatened 
and the case must be tried in two days. The elec- 
tion won’t take place for three days. They will 
take care not to complete the organization of the 
election committee the first day; we shall have to 
vote several times and you will succeed when it 
comes to a vote by ballot—’’ 

**How, pray ?’’ 

“‘By winning the Rouxeys lawsuit you will gain 
eighty legitimist votes ; add these to the thirty I have 
at my disposal and we have a hundred and ten. 
Now, as you will still have twenty of the Boucher 
committee, you will have a hundred and thirty 
in all.’’ 

“‘Very good,’’ said Albert, ‘‘but we need seventy- 
five more than that.’’— 

‘*Yes,’’ said the priest, ‘‘for all the rest belong to 
the ministry. But, my dear boy, you have two 
hundred votes, and the prefecture has only a hun- 
dred and eighty.’’ 

‘‘I have two hundred votes ?’’—said Albert, who 
stood speechless with amazement after jumping to 
his feet as if impelled by a spring. 

**You have Monsieur de Chavoncourt’s votes,”’ 
replied the abbé. 

‘How so?’ queried Albert. 

‘*You will marry Mademoiselle Sidonie de Chavon- 
court. ’’ 

‘*Never !’’ 

II 


162 ALBERT SAVARUS 


‘You will marry Mademoiselle Sidonie de Cha- 
voncourt,’’ the priest repeated coldly. 

“But, look, she is implacable!’’ said Albert, 
pointing to Francesca. 

“*You will marry Mademoiselle de Chavoncourt,’’ 
said the priest coldly, for the third time. 

That time Albert understood. The vicar-general 
did not choose to dip his hands in the plan which 
seemed at last to smile upon this politician in 
despair. A word more would have compromised the 
priest’s dignity, his honor. 

**You will find Madame de Chavoncourt and her 
second daughter at the Watteville’s to-morrow; you 
will thank her for what she is to do for you, you 
will say that your gratitude knows no bounds; ina 
word, you belong to her, body and soul, your future 
is henceforth identical with that of her family, you 
are disinterested, you have so great confidence in 
yourself that you look upon an election as deputy as 
a sufficient marriage-portion. You will have a 
struggle with Madame de Chavoncourt, she will 
want your word. This evening, my son, contains 
your whole future. But understand that | have no 
part in it. 1am responsible only for the legitimist 
votes; I have won over Madame de Watteville, 
and that means the whole aristocracy of Besan- 
con. Amédée de Soulas and Vauchelles, who will 
vote for you, have worked upon the young men; 
Madame de Watteville will look after the old men 
for you. As for my votes, they are absolutely 
certain.”’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 163 


‘*Who then has influenced Madame de Chavon- 
court, pray ?’’ asked Savarus. 

‘‘Don’t ask me any questions,’’ the abbé replied. 
‘‘Monsieur de Chavoncourt, who has three daugh- 
ters to be married, is incapable of adding to his 
fortune. If Vauchelles marries the oldest one with- 
out a dowry, because of the old aunt who looks after 
the finances in the contract, what is he to do with 
the two others? Sidonie is sixteen and you have a 
vast treasure in your ambition. Someone told Ma- 
dame de Chavoncourt that it was better to marry 
one of her daughters than to send her husband to eat 
up money at Paris. That someone leads Madame 
de Chavoncourt, and Madame de Chavoncourt leads 
her husband.’’ 

“Enough, dear abbé! I understand. Once 
elected deputy, I have someone’s fortune to make, 
and by making it a magnificent one I shall have 
fulfilled my promise. You have in mea son, a man 
who will owe his happiness to you. God! what 
have I done to deserve such true friendship ?”’ 

‘You won a triumph for the chapter,’’ said the 
vicar-general with a smile. ‘‘Now be as silent as 
the tomb touching all this. We amount to nothing, 
we do nothing. If people knew we were interfering 
with elections we should be eaten raw by the puri- 
tans of the Left, who do much worse things, and 
blamed by some of our own people, who want to do 
everything themselves. Madame de Chavoncourt 
doesn’t suspect my participation in this arrange- 
ment. I have confided in no one but Madame de 


164 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Watteville, and we can rely upon her as upon our- 
selves. ’’ 
**I will bring the duchess here for you to give us 
your blessing!’ cried the ambitious advocate. 
Having shown the venerable priest to the door 
Albert went to bed wrapped in a sense of power. 


* 


At nine o’clock the following evening, as may be 
imagined, Madame de Watteville’s salons were filled 
with the Bisontine aristocracy, convoked in extraor- 
dinary session! They were discussing the excep- 
tional step of going to the polls to gratify the daugh- 
ter of the De Rupts. They knew that the former 
master of requests, the secretary of one of the most 
faithful ministers of the elder branch, was to be 
presented to them. Madame de Chavoncourt was 
there with her second daughter Sidonie, arrayed like 
a goddess, while her first-born, sure of her lover, 
had recourse to no artifices of the toilette. Such 
trivial matters are noticed in the provinces. The 
handsome, clever face of the Abbé de Grancey was 
seen amid the various groups from time to time 
listening, apparently taking no part in the discus- 
sions, but injecting now and then one of those in- 
cisive phrases which summarize a question and 
decide it. 

‘If the elder branch should return,’’ he said to a 
septuagenarian statesman, ‘‘what supporters would 
it find among the politicians ?—Berryer, alone on his 
bench, doesn’t know what course to take; if he had 
sixty votes he could block the government many 
times and overturn ministries!—They’re going to 
elect the Duc de Fitz-James at Toulouse.—You will 
help Monsieur de Watteville win his lawsuit!—If 

(165) 


166 ALBERT SAVARUS 


you vote for Monsieur de Savarus, the republicans 
will vote with you rather than vote with the gov- 
ernment!’’ Etc., etc. 

At nine o’clock Albert had not arrived. Madame 
de Watteville was inclined to look upon such tardi- 
ness as an impertinence. 

‘“‘Dear baroness,’’ said Madame de Chavoncourt, 
“let us not allow such important matters to depend 
on a punctilio. A varnished boot that is backward 
about drying—a consultation—detains Monsieur de 
Savarus perhaps.”’ 

Rosalie looked askance at Madame de Chavon- 
court. 

‘*She’s very considerate to Monsieur de Savarus!’’ 
she said in an undertone to her mother. 

‘‘Why there’s some talk of a match between 
Sidonie and Monsieur de Savarus,’’ replied the 
baroness with a smile. 

Rosalie walked abruptly toward a window that 
looked out on the garden. At ten o’clock Monsieur 
de Savarus had still not appeared. The storm that 
had been rumbling in the distance burst. Some 
noblemen began to play cards, considering it an in- 
tolerable insult. The Abbé de Grancey, who did not 
know what to think, went to the window where 
Rosalie had hidden herself, and said aloud, so com- 
pletely puzzled was he: 

‘‘He must be dead!’’ 

The vicar-general went out into the garden, fol- 
lowed by Monsieur de Watteville and Rosalie, and 
all three went up tothe belvedere. Everything was 


ALBERT SAVARUS 167 


closed in Albert’s apartments, no light was any- 
where visible. 

“‘Jeréme!’’ cried Rosalie, spying the servant in 
the courtyard. 

The abbé looked at Rosalie. 

‘‘Where’s your master ?’’ she asked the servant, 
who had come to the foot of the wall. 

‘‘Gone away, by postchaise, mademoiselle.’’ 

“‘He is ruined,’’ cried Abbé de Grancey, ‘‘or 
happy !”’ 

The joy of triumph was not so quickly banished 
from Rosalie’s face that it was not detected by the 
vicar-general, who pretended to notice nothing. 

‘What can be Rosalie’s share in this business?’ 
the priest asked himself. 

The three returned to the salons where Monsieur 
de Watteville made known the strange, extraor- 
dinary, astounding intelligence of the departure of 
the advocate, Albert Savaron de Savarus by post 
without any explanation of the reasons of his disap- 
pearance. At half-past eleven no more than fifteen 
persons remained, among whom were Madame de 
Chavoncourt and the Abbé de Godenars, another 
vicar-general, a man of about forty who aspired to 
be a bishop, the two Mesdemoiselles de Chavoncourt 
and Monsieur de Vauchelles, Abbé de Grancey, 
Rosalie, Amédeé de Soulas and a former magistrate 
who had resigned his office, one of the most influen- 
tial personages among the aristocracy of Besancon 
and an earnest advocate of the election of Albert 
Savarus. 


168 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Abbé de Grancey took his place beside the baron- 
ess in such a way that he could look at Rosalie, 
whose face, ordinarily pale, was flushed as by 
fever. 

‘What can have happened to Monsieur de Sava- 
rus??? said Madame de Chavoncourt. 

At that moment a liveried servant brought a letter 
upon a silver salver to Abbé de Grancey. 

‘*Pray read it,’’ said the baroness. 

The vicar-general read the letter and saw that 
Rosalie suddenly turned as white as her fichu. 

“‘She recognizes the handwriting,’’ said the 
priest to himself after glancing at the girl over his 
spectacles. 

He folded the letter and coolly put it in his pocket 
without saying a word. In three minutes he re- 
ceived three glances from Rosalie which were 
enough to enable him to guess the whole truth. 

“‘She loves Albert de Savarus!’’ thought the 
vicar-general. 

He rose and Rosalie felt a sudden shock; he 
bowed, walked toward the door, and in the second 
salon was overtaken by Rosalie, who said to him: 

‘‘Monsieur de Grancey, it is from Albert.’’ 

“‘How do you know his writing well enough to 
recognize it at such a distance ?’’ 

The girl, caught in the toils of her impatience 
and her wrath, made a reply which the abbé thought 
sublime. 

‘*Because I love him!—What’s the matter with 
him ?’’ she added after a pause. 


ALBERT SAVARUS 169 


‘‘He abandons his candidacy,’’ replied the abbé. 

Rosalie placed her finger on her lips. 

*‘! demand secrecy as if I were in the confes- 
sional,’’ she said before they returned to the salon. 
““If there’s to be no election, there’ll be no mar- 
riage to Sidonie!’’ 

The next morning, on her way to mass, Rosalie 
learned from Mariette a part of the circumstances 
which led to Albert’s disappearance at the most 
critical moment of his life: 

‘*Mademoiselle, yesterday morning an old gentle- 
man arrived from Paris at the Hotel National in his 
own carriage, a handsome carriage with four horses, 
an outrider and a footman. Indeed, Jéréme, who 
saw the carriage drive away, declares that it 
couldn’t have been anyone but a prince or a 
milord.’’ 

‘‘Was there a crown fermée on the carriage ?’’ 
Rosalie asked. 

*‘] don’t know,’’ said Mariette. ‘‘Just as the 
clock struck two he called on Monsieur Savarus and 
sent up his card, and Jéréme says that when mon- 
sieur saw it he turned white as a sheet; then he 
said to show him in. Ashe himself closed the door 
and locked it, it’s impossible to find out what the 
old gentleman and the advocate said to each other; 
but they remained together about an hour; after 
that the old gentleman and the advocate sent for the 
footman. Jéréme saw the footman come out of the 
room with an enormous package, four feet long, that 
looked like a great picture on canvas. The old 


170 ALBERT SAVARUS 


gentleman had a big bundle of papers in his hand. 
The advocate was paler than death and, proud and 
dignified as he always is, he was in a pitiable state. 
—But he treated the old gentleman as respectfully 
as he could have done if he’d been the king. 
Jéréme and Monsieur Albert Savaron accompanied 
the old man to his carriage, which was waiting with 
four horses all harnessed to it. The outrider 
started on the stroke of three. Monsieur went 
straight to the prefecture and from there to Monsieur 
Gentillet’s, who sold him the late Madame Saint- 
Vier’s old traveling caléche; then he ordered post- 
horses for six o’clock. He returned to his rooms to 
pack his trunks, and he must have written several 
letters; last of all he settled up his business matters 
with Monsieur Girardet, who called on him and 
stayed till seven. Jéréme carried a line to Mon- 
sieur Boucher’s, where monsieur was expected to 
dinner. Then, at half-past seven, he went away 
leaving Jéréme three months’ wages and telling 
him to look for a place. He left his keys with Mon- 
sieur Girardet, after driving him home, and, as 
Jéréme says, taking a plate of soup with him, for 
Monsieur Girardet hadn’t dined at half-past seven. 
When Monsieur Savaron returned to the carriage he 
was like a dead man. Jéréme, who naturally 
waited to say adieu to his master, heard him say to 
the postilion: ‘The Geneva road.’ ”’ 

‘‘Did Jéréme inquire the stranger’s name at the 
Hotel National ?”’ 

‘‘As the old gentleman only stopped there in 


ALBERT SAVARUS 171 


passing they didn’t ask him his name. The ser- 
vant, by order no doubt, acted as if he couldn’t 
speak French.”’ 

‘‘And what about the letter Abbé de Grancey 
received so late?’’ said Rosalie. 

‘‘Monsieur Girardet must have sent it to him; 
but Jéréme says that poor Monsieur Girardet, who 
is very fond of Savaron, was quite as overcome as 
he. He who comes mysteriously, goes away 
mysteriously, Mademoiselle Galard says.’’ 

After hearing this narrative Rosalie’s manner was 
pensive and absorbed to a degree that was percep- 
tible to everybody. It is useless to mention the 
rumors to which Savaron’s disappearance gave rise 
in Besancon. It was known that the prefect put 
himself out to provide him with a foreign passport 
instantly, with the best grace in the world, for in 
this way he got rid of his only real opponent. The 
next day Monsieur de Chavoncourt was elected on 
the first vote, by a majority of a hundred and 
forty. 

‘‘Jean went away as he came,’’ said an elector 
when he learned of Albert Savaron’s flight. 

This event added strength to the prevailing pre- 
judice against strangers in Besancon, which had 
been abundantly demonstrated two years before 
apropos of the affair of the republican newspapers. 
Ten days passed and Albert de Savarus’s name 
ceased to be mentioned. Three persons only, 
Girardet the solicitor, the vicar-general and Ros- 
alie, were seriously affected by his disappearance. 


172 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Girardet knew that the white-haired stranger was 
Prince Soderini, for he saw the card and told the 
vicar-general; but Rosalie, who was much better 
informed than they, had known for three months of 
the death of the Duke of Argaiolo, 


% 


In the month of April, 1836, no one had heard 
aught of Albert de Savarus, nor had his name been 
mentioned. Jéréme and Mariette were to be mar- 
ried; but the baroness had confidentially suggested 
to her maid to wait for Rosalie’s marriage, so that 
the two weddings might take place together. 

‘‘It is time for Rosalie to be married,’’ said the 
baroness one day to Monsieur de Watteville; ‘‘she’s 
nineteen and she has changed these last few months 
in a way to frighten one—”’ 

‘1 don’t know what’s the matter with her,’’ said 
the baron. 

‘‘When fathers don’t know what the matter is 
with their daughters, mothers can sometimes guess, ”’ 
said the baroness; ‘‘she must be married.’’ 

‘1 am perfectly willing,’’ said the baron, ‘‘and 
for my part I’ll give her the Rouxeys, now that the 
tribunal has settled my dispute with the commune 
of Riceys by fixing my boundary line three hundred 
metres from the base of the Dent de Vilard. 
They’re digging a ditch there to receive all the 
water and carry it into the lake. The commune 
didn’t appeal, so the decision is final.’’ 

**You haven’t yet discovered,’’ said the baroness, 
‘that that decision cost me thirty thousand francs 
which I paid Chantonnit. The peasant wouldn’t 
take any less, he gets all the credit of winning the 

(173) 


174 ALBERT SAVARUS 


battle for his village, and he has sold us peace. If 
you give up the Rouxeys, you won’t have anything 
left.”’ 

**] don’t need much,’’ said the baron, ‘‘l’m near 
the end—’’ 

“*You eat like an ogre.’’ 

“*That’s just it: it does me no good to eat, and | 
feel that my legs are growing weaker and weaker.”’ 

“*It’s your turning,’’ said the baroness, 

**1 don’t know,”’ said the baron. 

‘*We’ll marry Rosalie to Monsieur de Soulas; if 
you give her the Rouxeys, reserve the use of the 
estate for your life; I will give them twenty-four 
thousand a year in the funds. Our children will 
live here and I don’t see that they’re much to be 
pitied.’’ 

*"No, Ill give them the Rouxeys outright. Ro- 
salie loves the Rouxeys.”’ 

"You act strangely with your daughter! You 
don’t ask me if I love the Rouxeys ?’’ 

Rosalie, being summoned in hot haste, learned 
that she was to marry Monsieur Amédée de Soulas 
early in May. 

**! thank you, mother, and you, father, for think- 
ing about getting me settled, but I don’t want to 
marry; | am very happy to be with you—’’ 

‘*Stuff!’’ exclaimed the baroness, ‘‘you don’t love 
Monsieur le Comte de Soulas, that’s the whole 
story.” 

‘If you want to know the truth, | will never 
marry Monsieur de Soulas—’’ 


ALBERT SAVARUS 175 


“Oh yes! the never of a girl of nineteen!’’ re- 
torted the baroness smiling bitterly. 

“‘The never of Mademoiselle de Watteville!’’ said 
Rosalie with emphasis. ‘‘I don’t think my father 
has any intention of marrying me against my will ?”’ 

“Oh! no, indeed,’’ said the poor baron, with an 
affectionate glance at his daughter. 

“Very well,’’ rejoined the baroness, curtly, re- 
straining the natural wrath of a devotee amazed to 
meet with defiance from an unexpected quarter, 
‘fyou can look after your daughter’s establishment 
yourself, Monsieur de Watteville!—Think well of it, 
Rosalie; if you don’t marry to suit me, you shall 
have nothing from me toward your fortune.’’ 

The quarrel thus begun between Madame de 
Watteville and the baron, who upheld his daughter, 
went so far, that Rosalie and her father were obliged 
to pass the summer at the Rouxeys; life at the De 
Rupt mansion was unendurable. It became known 
in Besancon that Mademoiselle de Watteville had 
positively refused Monsieur le Comte de Soulas. 
After their marriage Jéréme and Mariette went to 
the Rouxeys, to step into Modinier’s shoes some 
day. The baron repaired and restored the house in 
accordance with his daughter’s taste. When she 
learned that this work of restoration cost sixty thou- 
sand francs and that Rosalie and her father were 
building a hothouse, the baroness became aware 
that there was some leaven of malice in her daugh- 
ter’s nature. The baron bought several contiguous 
fields and a small estate worth about thirty thousand 


176 ALBERT SAVARUS 


francs. Madame de Watteville was told that her 
daughter, away from her, was showing herself to be 
an extremely capable girl; she was making a study 
of methods of improving the Rouxeys, she had 
donned a riding-habit and was accustomed to ride 
about on horseback; her father, who was very 
happy with her, who never complained of his health 
and was growing stout, accompanied her in her ex- 
cursions. When the baroness’s birthday drew near 
—her name was Louise—the vicar-general came to 
the Rouxeys, commissioned doubtless by Madame 
de Watteville and Monsieur de Soulas to negotiate a 
treaty between the mother and daughter. 

‘That little Rosalie has a head on her shoulders, ’’ 
people said in Besancon. 

Having nobly paid up the ninety thousand 
francs expended at the Rouxeys, the baroness would 
send her husband about a thousand francs a month 
to enable him to live there; she did not choose to 
put herself in the wrong. The father and daughter 
asked nothing more than to return to Besancon on 
the fifteenth of August, to remain there until the 
end of the month. When the vicar-general, after 
dinner, took Rosalie aside to broach the subject of 
her marriage, giving her to understand that she 
must not count upon Albert, who had not been heard 
from for a year, he was stopped short by a gesture 
from her. The strange creature seized Monsieur de 
Grancey’s arm and led him to a bench under a 
clump of rhododendrons, whence they could look out 
upon the lake. 


ALBERT SAVARUS 177 


‘Listen, dear abbé, whom I love as dearly as my 
father, because you are fond of my Albert,—the 
time has come when | must confess to you; I have 
committed crimes in order to be his wife, and he 
must be my husband. Look, read this!’’ 

She handed him a copy of the gazette which she 
took from the pocket of her apron, and pointed to the 
following article, dated Florence, May 25: 


“* The wedding of Monsieur le Duc de Rhétoré, eldest son 
of Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, the former ambassador, and 
Madame la Duchesse d’Argaiolo, born Princess Soderini, was 
celebrated with much splendor. Numerous festivities, given 
on the occasion of this wedding, impart animation to the city 
of Florence at the present moment. The fortune of Madame 
la Duchesse d’Argaiolo is one of the most considerable in 
Italy, for the late duke constituted her his sole legatee.”’ 


‘The woman he loved is married,’’ said she; ‘‘I 
separated them!’’ 

““You!—how, in Heaven’s name?’’ exclaimed the 
abbé. 

Rosalie was about to reply, when a loud outcry 
from two gardeners, preceded by the sound of a 
body falling into the water, interrupted her; she 
rose and rushed away, crying: 

“‘Oh! my father !—’’ 

The baron was not to be seen. 

In attempting to lift a fragment of granite on 
which he thought he could detect the impression of 
a shell—a fact that would have upset some geolog- 


ical theory—Monsieur de Watteville had ventured 
12 


178 ALBERT SAVARUS 


upon the sloping bank, lost his balance, and rolled 
down into the lake, which was naturally deepest at 
the foot of the dike. The gardeners had infinite 
difficulty in thrusting a pole within the baron’s 
reach by feeling about in the spot where the water 
was disturbed; but at last they drew him out covered 
with mud, into which he had plunged head-foremost 
and had buried himself still deeper by struggling. 
Monsieur de Watteville had dined heartily, his 
digestion had begun and was interrupted. When 
he had been undressed, washed clean and put to 
bed, it was so evident that he was in a dangerous 
condition that one servant was hurried on horseback 
to Besancon, another to fetch the nearest physician 
and surgeon. 

When Madame de Watteville arrived, eight hours 
after the accident, with the leading physician and 
surgeon of Besancon, they found Monsieur de Watte- 
ville in a desperate plight, notwithstanding the skil- 
ful ministrations of the physician from Riceys. The 
fright caused an effusion of serum in the brain and 
the arrested digestion gave the poor baron his coup 
de grace. 

His death, which would not have taken place, 
said the baroness, if her husband had remained at 
Besancon, was attributed by her to her daughter’s 
obstinacy, and she conceived an aversion for her 
while abandoning herself to sorrow and regret that 
were evidently exaggerated. She called the baron 
her dear lamb! The last Watteville was buried on 
an islet in the lake at the Rouxeys, where the 


ALBERT SAVARUS 179 


baroness erected a small gothic monument in white 
marble, like the one said to mark the grave of 
Héloise at Pére Lachaise. 

A month after this catastrophe the baroness and 
her daughter were living in the Du Rupt mansion 
in morose silence. Rosalie was the victim of a 
poignant sorrow, which sought no outlet; she ac- 
cused herself of her father’s death and suspected 
another disaster, even greater in her eyes, and 
most certainly caused by her, for neither Girardet 
the solicitor nor the Abbé de Grancey obtained the 
slightest clue to Albert’s fate. This silence was 
appalling. Ina paroxysm of remorse she felt that 
she must confess to the vicar-general the ghastly 
scheme by which she had separated Francesca from 
Albert. It was simple and horrifying. Mademoi- 
selle de Watteville had suppressed Albert’s letters 
to the duchess and that in which Francesca told her 
lover of her husband’s illness and that she could not 
answer his letters during the time that she must 
devote herself, as her duty required, to the dying 
man. Thus, during Albert’s preoccupation over the 
elections the duchess wrote him only two letters, the 
one in which she told him of the Duke of Argaiolo’s 
dangerous condition, and that in which she told him 
that she was a widow—two noble, sublime letters 
which Rosalie kept. After several nights’ work 
Rosalie had succeeded in imitating Albert’s hand- 
writing to perfection. For that faithful lover’s gen- 
uine letters she had substituted three letters, copies 
of which, when they were shown to the old priest, 


180 ALBERT SAVARUS 


made him shudder, the genius of evil was so mani- 
fest therein in its most perfect development. 
Rosalie, holding the pen for Albert, prepared the 
duchess for a change of heart on the part of the 
falsely unfaithful Frenchman. Rosalie responded to 
the news of the Duke of Argaiolo’s death with the 
news of Albert’s approaching marriage to herself, 
Rosalie. The two letters should have crossed and 
did actually cross each other. The infernal inge- 
nuity with which these letters were written so 
astounded the vicar-general that he read them a 
second time. To the last, Francesca, wounded to 
the heart by a girl who was seeking to destroy her 
rival’s love, made no other reply than these words: 
**You are free, adieu.”’ 

‘‘Purely moral crimes, which give human justice 
nothing to lay hold upon, are the most infamous, the 
most hateful,’’ said Abbé de Grancey sternly. 
“God often punishes them on earth: therein lies 
the explanation of many frightful catastrophes 
which seem to us inexplicable. Of all secret crimes - 
shrouded in the mystery of private life, one of the 
most dishonoring is the crime of breaking the seal 
of a letter or reading it surreptitiously. Any per- 
son, whoever he may be, or by whatever motive 
impelled, who allows himself to commit such a deed, 
thereby inflicts an ineradicable stain upon his honor. 
Do you realize all that there is touching, divine in 
the story of the young page, falsely accused, who 
was himself the bearer of a letter containing the 
order to put him to death, who set out on his mission 


ALBERT SAVARUS 181 


without thought of evil, and whom Providence 
thereupon took under its protection and saved 
miraculously, as we say ?—Do you know wherein the 
miracle consists? Virtue has a halo as powerful as 
that of innocent childhood. I say these things to 
you with no purpose to reprimand you,”’ said the 
old priest with profound sadness. ‘‘Alas! I am not 
acting now as one qualified to admonish and to give 
absolution; you are not kneeling at God’s feet; I 
am a friend, dismayed by my apprehension of the 
punishment in store for you. What has become of 
poor Albert? has he not taken his own life? An 
incredible violence of feeling was concealed beneath 
his assumed tranquillity. 1 understand that old 
Prince Soderini, Madame la Duchesse d’Argaiolo’s 
father, came here to demand his daughter’s letters 
and portrait. That was the thunderbolt that fell 
upon Albert’s head, and he doubtless tried to go to 
her and set himself right.—But how is it that in 
fourteen months he has made no sign ?’’ 

“Oh! if I marry him, he will be so happy—’’ 

“‘Happy ?—He doesn’t love you. Nor have you 
such a great fortune to offer him. Your mother has 
a most profound aversion for you, you made a sav- 
age retort to her that wounded her to the quick and 
will ruin you.’”’ 

‘‘What was that?’’ said Rosalie. 

‘When she said to you yesterday that obedience 
was the only way to atone for your wrong-doing, 
and reminded you of the necessity of marrying, in 
connection with Amédée: ‘if you’re so fond of him, 


182 ALBERT SAVARUS 


marry him yourself, mother!’ Did you, or did you 
not throw that remark at her head?”’ 

*“Yes,’’ said Rosalie. 

“Very good,’’ rejoined Monsieur de Grancey, 
**1 know her; in a few months she will be Comtesse 
de Soulas! She will have children, never fear, and 
she will give Monsieur de Soulas forty thousand 
francs a year; over and above that she’ll provide 
for him in her will and cut down your share in her 
real estate as much as she can. You’ll be poor as 
long as she lives and she’s only thirty-eight! Your 
property will consist of nothing but the Rouxeys 
estate and what little is left for you after the set- 
tlement of your father’s estate, if indeed your 
mother agrees to waive her claim upon the 
Rouxeys! From the standpoint of your material 
interests, you have managed your life badly 
enough; from the standpoint of your sentiments | 
think it is altogether ruined—Instead of turning to 
your mother—”’ 

Rosalie shook her head savagely. 

‘‘To your mother,’’ repeated the vicar-general, 
‘‘and to your religion, which, when your heart felt 
the first impulse, would have enlightened and ad- 
vised and guided you, you chose to follow your own 
path, knowing nothing of life and listening only to 
the voice of passion.”’ 

These sensible words terrified Rosalie. 

‘*What must I do?’’ she asked after a pause. 

‘*To undo the injury you have done, | must know 
the extent of it,’’ said the abbé. 


ALBERT SAVARUS 183 


‘‘Well, | will write to the only man who is likely 
to have information concerning Albert’s fate, Mon- 
sieur Léopold Hannequin, a notary at Paris and his 
friend from childhood.’’ 

‘“Write no more except to do homage to the truth, ”’ 
replied the vicar-general. ‘‘Entrust to me the gen- 
uine letters and the false ones, make your confession 
to me in detail, as to the director of your conscience, 
asking me by what means you can expiate your 
sins, and leaving yourself in my hands. 1 will see 
—But, first of all, prove the unhappy fellow’s in- 
nocence to the being of whom he made his god on 
earth. Even after his happiness is gone forever 
Albert will rejoice in his justification.”’ 

Rosalie promised to obey Abbé de Grancey, hoping 
that what he was about to do would perhaps re- 
sult in bringing Albert back to her. 


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A short time after Rosalie’s confidence, one of 
Monsieur Léopold Hannequin’s clerks came to Besan- 
con provided with a general power of attorney from 
Albert, and called first of all upon Monsieur Girardet 
to request him to sell Monsieur Savaron’s house. 
The solicitor undertook the commission out of 
friendship for the advocate. Theclerk sold the fur- 
niture, and with the proceeds was able to pay what 
Albert owed Girardet, who, at the time of his mys- 
terious departure, had handed him five thousand 
francs and agreed to collect what sums were due 
him. When Girardet asked what had become of 
the handsome, noble-hearted wrestler in whom he 
had become so deeply interested, the clerk replied 
that his master alone knew, and that the notary had 
seemed to be keenly afflicted by the contents of the 
last letter written by Monsieur Albert de Savarus. 

Upon receiving this information the vicar-general 
wrote to Léopold. The worthy notary replied as 
follows: 


TO MONSIEUR L’ABBE DE GRANCEY, VICAR- 
GENERAL OF THE DIOCESE OF BESANCON. 


** Paris. 

** Alas! monsieur, no man has the power to restore Albert 
to the life of the world; he has turned his back upon it. He 
is a novice at the Grande-Chartreuse, near Grenoble. You 
know better than I, who have just learned it, that every man 
dies on the threshold of that cloister. Anticipating my visit, 

(185) 


186 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Albert interposed the general of the Carthusians between all 
my efforts and himself. I know that noble heart well enough 
to know that he is the victim of an infamous plot, invisible to 
us; but everything is at an end. Madame la Duchesse 
d’Argaiolo, now Duchesse de Rhétoré, seems to me to have 
carried her cruelty to great lengths. At Belgirate, which 
place she had left when Albert hurried thither, she had ‘eft 
orders intended to make him believe that she was living in 
London. From London, Albert followed his mistress to 
Naples, and from Naples to Rome, where she contracted her 
engagement with the Duc de Rhétoré. When Albert finally 
succeeded in meeting Madame d’Argaiolo, it was at Florence, 
just when her wedding was taking place. Our poor friend 
fainted in the church, and has never been able, even when he 
was at death’s door, to obtain an explanation from that 
woman, who must have an extraordinary something in place 
of a heart. For seven months Albert traveled about in pur- 
suit of a barbarous creature who played a game of eluding 
him: he knew not how or where to seize her. I saw our poor 
friend on his way through Paris ; and if you had seen him as 
I did you would have realized that not a word must be said to 
him on the subject of the duchess, unless one wished to bring 
on a paroxysm in which his reason would have been endan- 
gered. If he had known what his crime was, he might have 
found a way to justify himself ; but to be falsely accused of 
having married! What was he to do? Albert is dead, abso- 
lutely dead, to the world. He longed for rest; let us hope 
that profound silence and prayer, wherein he has taken 
refuge, will bring him happiness in another form. If you 
have known him, monsieur, you may well pity him and pity 
his friends also! 
** Accept, etc.”’ 


As soon as the good vicar-general received this 
letter he wrote to the general of the Carthusians, 
and this was Albert Savarus’s reply: 


ALBERT SAVARUS 187 


BROTHER ALBERT TO MONSIEUR L’ABBE DE 
GRANCEY, VICAR-GENERAL OF THE DIOCESE 
OF BESANGON. 


** Grande-Chartreuse, November, 1836. 

**T recognized your tender and ever-youthful heart, dear 
and beloved vicar-general, in all that the reverend father, the 
general of our order, has just read to me. You have divined 
the only longing that remains hidden in the deepest recesses 
of my heart, relative to the things of this world: to cause her 
who has used me so ill to do justice to my sentiments! But, 
while leaving me at liberty to avail myself of your offer, the 
general desired to know if | was sure of my calling; he had 
the extreme kindness to tell me his thoughts when he saw 
that I had determined to maintain absolute silence in that 
regard. If 1 had yielded to the temptation to rehabilitate the 
man of the world, the monk would have been cast out of this 
monastery. That signal favor certainly did its work, but the 
battle, though short, was none the less desperate and cruel. 
Need | say more to show you that I cannot think of returning 
to the world? Therefore, the forgiveness you seek for the 
author of so much misery is granted freely and without any 
thought of anger. I will pray that God may deign to forgive 
the young woman as I forgive her, just as I will pray God to 
grant a happy life to Madame de Rhétoré. Ah! whether it 
be death or the persistent hand of a young girl desperately 
bent upon winning a man’s love, or whether it be one of those 
blows which are attributed to chance, must not God be 
always obeyed? In certain hearts misfortune creates a vast 
desert, wherein the voice of God is heard. | have learned 
too late the connection between this life and that which 
awaits us, for everything about me is worn out. I should 
not have been able to serve in the ranks of the church mili- 
tant, so I throw myself for what remains of an almost extinct 
life at the foot of the sanctuary. This is the last time | 
shall write. No other than you, who loved me and whom I 


188 ALBERT SAVARUS 


loved so well, could have made me break the law of oblivion 
I imposed upon myself when | entered the metropolis of 
Saint-Bruno. You will be particularly remembered in the 
prayers of 

‘**BROTHER ALBERT.” 


‘*Perhaps it’s all for the best,’? said Abbé de 
Grancey to himself. 

When he had shown this letter to Rosalie, who 
piously kissed the passage containing her pardon, 
he said to her: 

‘‘Well, now that he is lost to you, won’t you 
make peace with your mother by marrying the 
Comte de Soulas ?”’ 

‘*Albert must order me to do it,’’ she replied. 

“You see that it’s impossible to consult him. 
The general wouldn’t allow it.’’ 

‘*Suppose | were to go and see him ?’’ 

‘The Carthusians don’t receive visitors. Be- 
sides, no woman, except the Queen of France, can 
enter the Chartreuse,’’ said the abbé. ‘‘So there’s 
nothing now to prevent you marrying young Mon- 
sieur de Soulas.’’ 

“1 don’t want to make my mother unhappy,’’ 
Rosalie retorted. 

“‘Satan!’’ cried the vicar-general. 

Toward the close of that winter the excellent 
Abbé de Grancey died. That faithful friend was 
no longer at hand to stand between Madame de 
Watteville and her daughter, those two iron wills. 
The event predicted by the vicar-general came to 


ALBERT SAVARUS 189 


pass. In August, 1837, Madame de Watteville mar- 
ried Monsieur de Soulas at Paris, whither she went 
on the advice of Rosalie, who was kind and lovely 
to her mother. Madame de Watteville believed in 
her daughter’s affection; but Rosalie simply wished 
to visit Paris in order to indulge in the pleasure of 
an atrocious vengeance: she thought of nothing but 
avenging Savarus by making a martyr of her rival. 

Mademoiselle de Watteville had been emanci- 
pated; indeed she would soon have completed her 
twenty-first year. Her mother, to settle accounts 
with her, had abandoned her claim upon the 
Rouxeys, and the daughter had given her mother a 
release of all claim to the Baron de Watteville’s 
estate. Rosalie had encouraged her mother to 
marry the Comte de Soulas and to provide liberally 
for him. 

‘Let us both be free,’’ she said to her. 

Madame de Soulas, feeling some uneasiness as to 
her daughter’s intentions, was amazed at this noble 
conduct; she presented Rosalie with six thousand 
francs a year in the funds to quiet her conscience. 
As Madame la Comtesse de Soulas had forty-eight 
thousand a year in real estate, from land, and was 
powerless to alienate any part of it with a view of 
diminishing Rosalie’s share, Mademoiselle de Watte- 
ville was still an heiress to the extent of eighteen 
hundred thousand francs: with some improvements 
the Rouxeys might be made to produce twenty 
thousand francs a year besides the value of the 
dwelling house, the rents and its appurtenances. 


190 ALBERT SAVARUS 


Thus Rosalie and her mother, who readily adopted 
the manners and fashions of Paris, were soon intro- 
duced into the best circles. 

The golden key—the words: eighteen hundred 
thousand francs !—embroidered upon Rosalie’s cor- 
sage, served the Comtesse de Soulas much better 
than her airs a la De Rupt, her misplaced pride, or 
even her somewhat far-fetched genealogies. 

About the month of February, 1838, Rosalie, to 
whom many young men were assiduously paying 
court, executed the project that brought her to 
Paris. She desired to meet the Duchesse de Rhétoré, 
to see that marvelous woman and to plunge her into 
everlasting remorse. So Rosalie’s achievements 
in self-adornment and coquetry, in her endeavor to 
place herself upon a footing of equality with the 
duchess, were simply bewildering. The first meet- 
ing took place at the ball given annually since 1830 
for the pensioners of the old Civil List. 

A young man, incited by Rosalie, said to the 
duchess, pointing to her as he spoke: 

-“There’s a most remarkable young woman, a 
clever creature! She drove a man of very great 
talent, Albert de Savarus, whose whole life was 
ruined by her, into a convent, the Grande-Char- 
treuse. That’s Mademoiselle de Watteville, the 
famous heiress of Besangon.”’ 

The duchess turned pale; Rosalie exchanged with 
her one of those glances which, from woman to 
woman, are more deadly than pistol shots in a duel. 
Francesca Soderini, who had a suspicion that Albert 


ALBERT SAVARUS 191 


was innocent, immediately left the ball room, turn- 
ing her back abruptly upon her interlocutor, who 
had no means of guessing the terrible wound he 
had inflicted on the lovely Duchesse de Rhétoré. 


‘*If you wish to know more about Albert, come to the 
Opera ball next Tuesday, and carry a marigold in your 
hand.” 


This anonymous note, sent by Rosalie to the 
duchess, lured the unhappy Italian to the ball, 
where Rosalie placed in her hand all Albert’s letters, 
the one written by the vicar-general to Léopold 
Hannequin, with the notary’s reply, and that in 
which she made her confession to Monsieur de 
Grancey. 

‘*] didn’t want to be the only one to suffer, for 
we have been equally cruel!’’ she said to her rival. 

Having enjoyed to the full the stupefaction de- 
picted upon the duchess’s beautiful face, Rosalie 
made her escape; she appeared no more in society, 
but returned with her mother to Besancon. 

Mademoiselle de Watteville, who lives alone on 
her estate, the Rouxeys, riding, hunting, refusing 
her two or three offers a year, coming to Besancon 
four or five times during the winter, intent upon 
developing her estate, is looked upon as an ex- 
tremely original person. She is one of the celebri- 
ties of the East. 

Madame de Soulas has two children, a boy and a 
girl; she has grown younger, but young Monsieur 
de Soulas has aged considerably. 


192 ALBERT SAVARUS 


‘‘My fortune costs me dear,’’ he said to young 
Chavoncourt. ‘‘To know a devotee thoroughly, one 
must be unlucky enough to marry her.”’ 

Mademoiselle de Watteville behaves like a most 
extraordinary young woman. People say of her: 
She is crotchety. She goes every year to look at the 
walls of the Grande-Chartreuse. Perhaps she pro- 
poses to imitate her grand-uncle by climbing the 
wall of the convent to seek her husband, as Watte- 
ville climbed the wall of his monastery to recover 
his liberty. 

In 1841 she left Besancon, intending, so it was 
said, to marry; but no one knows the real motive of 
that journey, from which she returned in a plight 
that made it impossible for her ever to reappear in 
society. By one of those strokes of chance to 
which the old Abbé de Grancey alluded, she hap- 
pened to be upon the Loire in a steamboat whose 
boiler exploded. Mademoiselle de Watteville was 
so cruelly injured, that she lost her right arm and 
her left leg; her face bears terrible scars which have 
robbed it of its beauty; her health, subjected toa 
horrible shock, leaves her but few days without 
suffering. In fact, to-day she never goes outside her 
country-house at the Rouxeys, where she leads a 
life entirely given over to religious observances, 


Paris, May, 1842. 


13 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


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MADEMOISELLE FLORINE 


At three oclock in the morning, Florine was 
able to undress and go to bed as of she were alone, 
although no one had gone away. All these lights 
of the age were sleeping like beasts. When the 
packers and porters and draymen arrived, early in 
the morning, to remove all the famous actress's 
magnificence, she laughed heartily as she saw them 
lift up these celebrities like heavy pieces of furniture 
and deposit them on the floor. Thus all the lovely 
things vanished. 


TO MADAME LA COMTESSE BOLOGNINI, 
NEE VIMERCATI 


If you remember, madame, the pleasure your 
conversation afforded a certain traveler by remind- 
ing him of Paris at Milan, you will not be surprised 
to find him testifying his gratitude for the many 
pleasant evenings passed in your company, by laying 
one of his books at your feet, and soliciting for it the 
protection of your name—a name which heretofore 
protected several tales of one of your old authors, dear 
to the hearts of the Milanese. You have an Eugénie, 
beautiful even now, whose thoughtful smile assures 
us that she will inherit from you the most precious 
gifts of woman, and will assuredly enjoy in her 
childhood all the delights which a sad-visaged mother 
refused to the Eugénie who figures in this story. 
You see that, even though the French are accused 
of fickleness and forgetfulness, I am a true Italian 
in constancy and faithful memory. As I wrote the 
name of Eugénie my thoughts often carried me back 
to the freshly stuccoed salon and the little garden, 
at the Vicolo dei Capuccini, which heard the dear 
child’s joyous laughter and our quarrels and our 
anecdotes. You have left the Corso for the Tre 
Monasteri; | have no idea how you are situated 

(195) 


196 DEDICATION 


there and I am compelled to think of you, no longer 
amid the lovely things which doubtless still surround 
you there, but as one of the lovely figures conceived 
by Carlo Dolci, Raphael, Titian or Allori, which 
seem like mere abstractions, they are so far removed 
from us. 

If this book succeed in passing across the Alps, 
it will bear witness to the lively gratitude and 
respectful friendship of 


Your humble servant, 
DE BALZAC. 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


* 


In one of the finest houses on Rue Neuve-des- 
Mathurins, at half-past eleven in the evening, two 
women were sitting in front of the fire in a boudoir 
hung with blue velvet of soft, changing hues, such 
as French manufacturers have only of late years 
learned to make. At the doors and windows one of 
those upholsterers who are at the same time true 
artists, had draped soft clinging cashmere curtains 
of the same shade of blue as the hangings on the 
wall. A silver lamp, studded with turquoises, was 
suspended from a lovely piece of rose-work in the 
centre of the ceiling by three chains of beautiful 
workmanship. The decorative scheme was ex- 
tended to the smallest details; even the ceiling 
itself was of blue silk with white cashmere stars, 
and from it long bands of white cashmere fell in 
graceful folds upon the wall at equal intervals, held 
in place by knots of pearls. The feet met the warm 
texture of a Brussels carpet, thick and soft as turf, 
and with bunches of blue flowers strewn upon a 
gray ground. The furniture was of carved violet- 
wood, after the finest designs of the olden time, and 
its rich, warm tones relieved the lack of character 

(197) 


198 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


in the decoration, which a painter would have 
called a little too flat. The backs of the chairs and 
couches were like thin sheets of a beautiful white 
silk material with raised blue flowers, boldly framed 
by foliage artistically carved in the wood. On 
either side of the window a cabinet displayed its 
thousand and one priceless trifles, the flowers of the 
mechanical arts blossoming under the burning rays 
of thought. Upon the mantel of dark blue marble 
the wildest creations in Saxon porcelain, shepherds 
on their way to never-ending wedding-feasts with 
delicate nosegays in their hands—Chinese ideas 
executed in Germany—surrounded a platinum clock 
inlaid with arabesques. Above gleamed the beveled 
edges of a Venetian mirror, in an ebony frame laden 
with figures in bas-relief, a relic of some old royal 
residence. Two jardiniéres displayed the sickly 
splendor of the hothouse, pale-hued and divinely 
beautiful flowers, the pearls of the botanist’s art. 
In this cold, orderly boudoir, as neat and clean as 
if it had been for sale, you would have looked in 
vain for the capricious, roguish disorder which 
speaks of happiness. Everything there was in 
_ harmony, for the two women were weeping. Every- 
thing in the room seemed to be in agony. 

The name of the proprietor, Ferdinand du Tillet, 
one of the wealthiest bankers in Paris, is a sufficient 
justification for the immoderate extravagance notice- 
able in this mansion, of which the boudoir we have 
described may serve as an illustration. Although 
without family, although a self-made man—God 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 199 


knows how!—Du Tillet had married in 1831 the 
youngest daughter of the Comte de Granville, one 
of the most illustrious names in the French magis- 
tracy, who became a peer of France after the Rev- 
olution of July. This marriage of ambition was 
purchased by the bridegroom’s acknowledging in 
the contract the receipt of a marriage-portion he did 
not obtain, as large as that of the bride’s older 
sister, who was married to Comte Félix de Vande- 
nesse. Now, the Granvilles had brought about the 
alliance with the Vandenesse family solely by the 
immensity of the marriage-portion. Thus the bank 
repaired the breach made in the magistracy by the 
nobility. If the Comte de Vandenesse could have 
looked forward three years and seen himself the 
brother-in-law of one Ferdinand, called Du Tillet, 
he might not have married his wife perhaps; but 
who could have foreseen, in the latter part of 1828, 
the extraordinary overturn in the political condi- 
tion, the fortunes and the moral state of France that 
the year 1830 was destined to bring about? That 
man would have been deemed insane who should 
have told Comte Félix de Vandenesse that in that | 
transformation scene he would lose his peer’s cor- 
onet only to find it again upon his father-in-law’s 
head. 

Seated upon one of the low chairs called chauffeuses, 
in the attitude of one listening attentively, Madame 
du Tillet was holding her sister, Madame Félix de 
Vandenesse, close to her heart, and from time to 
time kissing her hand. In society the baptismal 


200 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


name was added to the family name in order to 
distinguish the countess from her sister-in-law, the 
marchioness, wife of the one-time ambassador, 
Charles de Vandenesse, who had married the 
wealthy widow of the Comte de Kergarouét, a 
Mademoiselle de Fontaine. Half-lying upon a small 
sofa, with a handkerchief in her disengaged hand, 
her breathing broken by repressed sobs and her 
eyes swimming with tears, the countess had been 
confiding to her sister such things as are confided 
only by one sister to another when they love each 
other; and these two sisters did love each other 
dearly. We live in a time when it would be so 
common an occurrence for two sisters thus strangely 
married not to love each other, that an historian is 
bound to set forth the reasons of their affection, 
which had endured without break or impairment 
notwithstanding the mutual contempt of their hus- 
bands for each other and constant family discord. 
A rapid glance at their early years will make clear 
their respective positions. 

Brought up in a gloomy mansion in the Marais 
by a devout woman of limited intellectual powers, 
who, being impregnated with her duties —the classic 
phrase—had fulfilled the first obligation of a mother 
to her daughters—Marie-Angélique and Marie- 
Eugénie entered the married state—the former at 
twenty years, the second at seventeen—without 
having ever emerged from the domestic circle where 
the maternal glance hovered overthem. Up to that 
time they had never been to the play; the churches 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 201 


of Paris were their theatres. In short, their bring- 
ing up under their mother’s roof had been as stern as 
it could have been in aconvent. From the time 
they were old enough to think they slept always in 
a room adjoining the Comtesse de Granville’s, and 
the door was left open all night. The time which 
was not devoted to the care of their persons, to 
religious duties or the studies indispensable to the 
education of well-born maidens, was passed in 
working with their needles for the poor, or in walks 
abroad like those which the English allow them- 
selves to indulge in on Sundays, saying, ‘‘Let’s not 
walk so fast, or we shall look as if we were enjoy- 
ing ourselves.’’ Their education did not go beyond 
the limits imposed by confessors who were selected 
from among the most intolerant and most Jansenist 
churchmen. Never were purer or more chaste 
maidens given over to a husband’s keeping; their 
mother seemed to have looked upon this point, 
which is certainly most essential, as the fulfilment 
of her whole duty to God and man. The two poor 
creatures had never read a novel before marriage, 
nor had they drawn anything save figures whose 
anatomy would have seemed to Cuvier the culmina- 
tion of the impossible, engraved in a way to make 
the Farnese Hercules himself turn woman. An old 
maid taught them to draw. A venerable priest 
instructed them in grammar, the French language, 
history, geography and the little arithmetic neces- 
sary for women to know. Their reading, all from 
books sanctioned by the church, like the Lettres 


202 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


Edifiantes and Noél’s Legons de Littérature, was done 
aloud in the evening, always in the presence of 
their mother’s spiritual director, for it was pos- 
sible that they might fall in with passages which, 
without judicious comments, would arouse their 
imagination. Fénelon’s 7élémaque was considered 
a dangerous work. The Comtesse de Granville 
“loved her daughters enough to long to make them 
angels after the style of Marie Alacoque; but her 
daughters would have preferred a less virtuous and 
more amiable mother. 

This education bore its natural fruit. Reli- 
gion imposed as a yoke and presented in its 
most austere form, tired out with its everlasting 
ceremonial these innocent young hearts, who were 
treated as if they were criminals; it repressed 
their feelings, and although it took deep root it 
was not loved. The two Maries were certain 
either to become imbeciles or to long for freedom; 
they would long to be married as soon as they could 
catch a glimpse of the world, and compare others’ 
ideas with their own; but their own touching 
charms and their own priceless worth, of these they 
knew naught. They knew not their own purity, 
and what could they have known of life? Without 
arms against misfortune, as they were without ex- 
perience to enable them to appreciate good fortune, 
they had no other source of consolation than them- 
selves in the depths of their maternal prison. Their 
whispered confidences in the evening, or the few 
words they exchanged when their mother left them 


v 
A DAUGHTER OF EVE 203 


for a moment, sometimes contained more ideas than 
the words could give expression to. Often a 
glance, seen by no other eye, whereby they com- 
municated their emotions to each other, was like a 
poem of bitter melancholy. The sight of the cloud- 
less sky, the sweet odor of the flowers, the circuit 
of the garden arm in arm, afforded them unspeak- 
able delight. The completion of a piece of em- 
broidery was a source of innocent joy. Their 
mother’s social circle, far from offering their hearts 
any resource or stimulating their minds, had no 
other effect than to cast a shadow upon their thoughts 
and impart a tinge of sadness to their emotions: for 
it was composed of narrow, strait-laced, dull old 
women, whose conversation turned upon the points 
of difference between preachers and confessors, 
upon their petty illnesses and upon religious in- 
cidents of too trifling importance for the Quotidienne 
even, or the Ami de la Religion. As for the men, 
their faces were so cold and wore such sad and 
resigned expressions, that they would have extin- 
guished the torches of love; they were all of the age 
when a man is disappointed and sour, when his 
feelings have ceased to act except at the table, and 
are concerned only with those things which affect 
his physical well-being. Religious selfishness had 
withered all these hearts, consecrated to duty and 
entrenched behind church ceremonial. Silent games 
at cards engrossed their attention most of the even- 
ing. The two little maids, put under the ban, as it 
were, by this Sanhedrim which upheld the maternal 


204 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


austerity, surprised themselves by hating these de- 
pressing individuals with the sunken eyes and for- 
bidding faces. Against the dark shadows of this 
life of theirs the face of one man stood out in bold 
relief, and that one amusic-master. The confessors 
had decided that music was a Christian art, born in 
the Catholic Church and by it developed. The two 
little girls were permitted therefore to learn music. 
A spectacled maiden who taught vocal scales and 
the piano at a neighboring convent wore them out 
with exercises. But when the older of his daughters 
reached the age of ten, the Comte de Granville 
suggested the propriety of her taking a master. 
Madame de Granville claimed all the credit of an 
act of wifely obedience for this necessary concession ; 
it is a peculiarity of devotees that they make a vir- 
tue of duties accomplished. The master was a 
German Catholic, one of those men, born old, who 
will never be more than fifty, even when they are 
eighty. His dark, furrowed, wrinkled face still 
retained a trace of childish innocence in its black 
depths. The deep blue of purity gave life to his 
eyes and the joyous smile of the springtime dwelt 
upon his life. His old gray hair, falling naturally 
like Jesus Christ’s, gave to his ecstatic expression 
an indescribable touch of solemnity, which led 
people astray as to his character; he would have 
done the most idiotic thing with the most exemplary 
gravity. His habits were a necessary envelope to 
which he paid no attention, for his eyes were too 
high up among the clouds ever to descend to material 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 205 


affairs. So this great, unknown artist may be said 
to have belonged to the amiable race of forgetful 
men, who give their time and their talents to others 
just as they leave their gloves upon every table and 
their umbrellas at every door. His hands were of 
the sort that look dirty immediately after they have 
been washed. In fine, his old body, which was 
awkwardly perched upon his old, rickety legs, and 
proved how far a man can make it the accessory of 
his mind, was one of those extraordinary creations 
which have never been painted save by a German, 
by Hoffmann, the poet of that which seems not to 
exist and yet has life. 

Such was Schmucke, once precentor to the Margrave 
of Anspach, a scholar who underwent an examina- 
tion at the hands of a religious council, and was asked 
if he fasted. The master would have liked to answer, 
‘*Just look at me!’’ but how could he trifle with de- 
votees and Jansenist shepherds? The apocryphal old 
fellow occupied so great a place in the lives of the two 
Maries, and they became so attached to the pure- 
minded and great artist who was content to under- 
stand his art, that each of them, after her marriage, 
gave him an annuity of three hundred francs a year, 
which was enough to pay for his lodgings, his beer, 
his pipe and his clothing. Six hundred francs a 
year beside his lessons, made the earth an Eden to 
him. Schmucke had never had the courage to con- 
fide his poverty and his aspirations to anybody save 
these two adorable maidens, these hearts which 
had blossomed under the snow of maternal severity 


206 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


and the ice of enforced piety. This fact explains 
Schmucke’s life and the childhood of the two Maries. 
Later, none could say what abbé, what old devotee 
discovered the German astray in Paris. As soon 
as the mothers of families learned that the Comtesse 
de Granville had found a music-master for her 
daughters, they all asked for his name and address. 
Schmucke had thirty houses at which he gave 
lessons in the Marais. His tardy success was made 
manifest by shoes with bronzed steel buckles and 
horsehair soles, and by more frequent renewal of 
his linen. His artless gaiety, long repressed by 
noble and self-respecting poverty, reappeared. He 
allowed such bright little remarks as this to escape 
him: ‘‘Mesdemoiselles, the cats ate up the mud in 
Paris last night,’’? when the frost had dried up the 
muddy streets over night; but he would say it in 
German patois, like this: ‘‘Montemisselles, ze cads 
haf eaden up ze mud lazd nide een Baris!” Well 
content to lay at the feet of the two angels this 
forget-me-not, so to speak,- culled from among the 
flowers of his intellect, he would assume as he 
offered it, a clever, knowing air which disarmed 
raillery. He was so happy to make the lips of 
his pupils open with a smile—for the secret of 
their wretched lives had been fathomed by him— 
that he would have made himself ridiculous for 
that express purpose, had he not been naturally 
so; but his heart would have given new life to 
the tritest commonplaces; to adopt a happy ex- 
pression of the lamented Saint-Martin he would 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 207 


have made the mire golden with his heavenly 
smile. 

In accordance with one of the most praiseworthy 
precepts of a religious education the two Maries 
always respectfully escorted their master to the door 
of their apartments. There the poor girls would say 
afew kindly words, happy in their ability to make 
him happy; they could show themselves as women 
to none but him! So it was that, up to the time of 
their marriage, music was to them a life within a 
life, just as the Russian peasant, so it is said, takes 
his dreams for reality, his life for a bad dream. In 
their desire to defend themselves against the multi- 
tude of paltry things that threatened to swallow up 
their lives, against the all-consuming ascetic ideas, 
they recklessly attacked the difficulties of the 
musical art. Melody, harmony, composition, the 
three daughters of heaven whose chorus was led by 
the old music-drunken Catholic faun, rewarded 
them for their labors and formed a rampart with 
their ethereal dances. Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, 
Paésiello, Cimarosa, Hummel and the geniuses of 
the second order developed in them a thousand 
sentiments which did not overstep the chaste circle 
of their veiled hearts, but which made their way 
into the creative sphere where they flew about with 
wings outspread. When they had performed some 
little thing almost perfectly, they would press each 
other’s hands and kiss each other ecstatically, and 
their old master would call them his Saint Cecilias. 

The two Maries never attended a ball until they 


208 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


were sixteen, and then only four times a year, at 
some few carefully selected houses. They did not 
leave their mother’s side without being well pro- 
vided with instructions as to the line of conduct 
they were to adopt toward their partners, and such 
strict instructions too that they could answer naught 
but yes or no. The countess never took her eye off 
her daughters, and that eye seemed to divine the 
words they spoke simply by the movement of their 
lips. The poor children had ball-dresses against 
which nothing could be said—muslin gowns high in 
the neck, with an infinitude of excessively full 
ruches and flounces and long sleeves. This cos- 
tume, by holding in leash their charms and their 
hidden beauties gave them a sort of vague resem- 
blance to an Egyptian scabbard; nevertheless two 
faces, lovely in their melancholy, emerged from 
these two masses of cotton. They were furious 
to find themselves the objects of kindly com- 
passion. What woman ever lived, however in- 
nocent, who did not desire to arouse envy? No 
perilous or unhealthy or even equivocal thought 
ever stained the gray matter of their brains; their 
hearts were pure, their hands were horribly red, 
they were bursting with health. Eve came not 
forth from God’s hands more guileless than were 
these maidens when they went forth from the 
maternal roof to the mayor’s office and the church, 
with the simple but awe-inspiring command to ren- 
der obedience in every point to the men, at whose 
sides they were thenceforth, sleeping or waking, to 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 209 


pass their nights. In their opinion they could be 
no worse off in the strange households to which they 
were to be deported than in the maternal convent. 
Why was it that the father of these girls, the 
Comte de Granville, great and learned and upright 
magistrate that he was, although sometimes carried 
rather far by politics, did not protect the poor little 
creatures from this crushing despotism? Alas! by 
virtue of a noteworthy bargain, agreed to after ten 
years of married life, the husband and wife lived 
separate lives in their own house. The father had 
stipulated that he should himself look to his sons’ 
education, leaving to his wife the education of his 
daughters. In his eyes the application of this op- 
pressive system was fraught with much less danger 
for girls than for boys. The two Maries, who were 
destined to undergo tyranny in some form, either of 
love or of marriage, would lose less thereby than 
boys, whose minds should be left free, and whose 
mental qualities would be impaired under the violent 
compression of religious ideas carried to extremes. 
Of four possible victims the count had saved two. 
The countess looked upon her two sons—one of 
whom was destined for a life judgeship, the other 
for a seat among the magistrates of uncertain tenure 
—as having been too badly brought up to be ad- 
mitted to the slightest intimacy with their sisters. 
A rigorous surveillance was maintained over all 
communication between the poor children. More- 
over, when the count took his sons from college, he 
was very careful not to keep them at home. The 
14 


210 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


two boys came there to breakfast with their mother 
and sisters; after that the magistrate provided 
entertainment for them away from the house; the 
café, the theatre, the museum, or excursions in the 
country in the season, supplied their diversions. 
Except upon solemn days in the family calendar, 
such as the countess’s birthday or the count’s New 
Year’s day, or the days on which prizes were distrib- 
uted, when the boys remained at the house and 
slept there—excessively bored, by the way, and 
afraid to kiss their sisters, they were so closely 
watched by their mother, who never left them to- 
gether an instant—the poor girls saw their brothers 
so rarely that it was impossible that there should 
be any bond between them. On those days such 
questions as: ‘‘Where’s Angélique?’ ‘‘What’s 
Eugénie doing?’ ‘‘Where are my children ?’’ were 
heard at every turn. When her two sons were 
mentioned the countess would raise her cold tear- 
bedewed eyes to Heaven as if to implore God’s for- 
giveness for not having wrested them from the 
grasp of impiety. Her exclamations, her reticence 
in regard to them were as full of meaning as the 
most mournful verses of Jeremiah, and deceived the 
sisters, who believed their brothers to be utterly 
perverse and damned forever. 

When his sons were eighteen years old the count 
gave them eacha room in his own suite, and started 
them on the study of the law, placing them in the 
charge of an advocate, his secretary, who was 
instructed to initiate them in the secrets of their 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 211 


future. Thus the two Maries knew nothing of 
fraternity save in the abstract. At the time of their 
respective marriages their brothers were both kept 
away by important cases, the one being then avocat- 
général in some distant jurisdiction and the other 
just beginning practice in the provinces. Many 
families whose home life one might imagine to be 
friendly, affectionate, coherent, really live like this: 
the brothers are away from home, intent upon ad- 
vancement and money-making, or enlisted in the 
service of their country; the sisters are enveloped 
in a whirl of family interests, entirely distinct from 
theirs. And so all the members of the family are 
disunited and soon forget one another, and are bound 
together only by the feeble ties of memory until the 
time comes when pride or self-interest brings them 
together, or, it may be, severs them in spirit as 
they have heretofore been separated in body. A 
family united in body and spirit alike is a rare ex- 
ception. Modern laws, multiplying the family by 
the family, have created the most horrible of all 
plagues—individualism. 

In the profound solitude in which their youth 
was passed, Angélique and Eugénie rarely saw their 
father; and when he did appear in the spacious 
suite occupied by his wife on the ground-floor of the 
house, he brought a depressing countenance thither. 
In his home he retained the grave and solemn ex- 
pression of the magistrate on the bench. When the 
little girls had passed the age of dolls and play- 
things, when they were beginning to use their 


212 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


reason and had already ceased to laugh at old 
Schmucke—that is to say, when they were about 
twelve years old—they discovered the secret of the 
anxiety which caused the furrows on the count’s 
brow, and detected beneath his mask of sternness the 
traces of a kindly disposition and a charming char- 
acter. They came to understand that he had given 
way to the inroads of religion in his household be- 
cause he was disappointed in his hopes as a hus- 
band, just as he had been wounded in the most 
sensitive fibres of the paternal heart, a father’s love 
for his daughters. Such sorrow produces a singu- 
larly deep impression upon young girls who are 
deprived of the joys of tenderness. Sometimes as 
they were walking about the garden together at 
their childish gait, each with an arm around the 
other’s slender waist, their father would stop them 
under a clump of trees and kiss their foreheads one 
after the other. His eyes, his mouth, his whole 
countenance expressed at such moments the most 
profound compassion. 

‘You aren’t very happy, my dear little girls,’’ 
he would say; ‘‘but I’ll find husbands for you in 
good season, and | shall be very glad to see you 
leave the house. ’’ 

‘*Papa,’’ Eugénie would say, ‘‘we have made up 
our minds to marry the first man that comes along.”’ 

‘*And this is the bitter fruit of such a system as 
hers!’’? he would cry. ‘‘She tries to make saints, 
and turns out—’’ 

He never finished the sentence. Often the girls 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 213 


were conscious of most affectionate warmth in their 
father’s manner of bidding them adieu, and in his 
glances when it so happened that he dined at home. 
They pitied this father of theirs whom they saw so 
rarely, and we love those whom we pity. 

The austere religious education we have described 
was the moving cause of the marriages of the two 
sisters, who were welded together by unhappiness 
as closely as Rita-Christina by nature. Many men, 
forced by circumstances to think of marriage, prefer 
a girl taken from the convent and saturated with 
religion to one reared upon worldly principles. 
There is no middle course. A man must marry an 
up-to-date damsel who has read and digested the 
newspapers, who has waltzed and danced the galop 
with innumerable young men, who has been to all the 
plays, who has devoured all the latest novels, who 
has had her knees bruised by a dancing-master 
leaning his against them, who cares but little for 
religion and has prepared her own code of morals; 
or else a pure and untutored maiden like Marie- 
Angélique and Marie-Eugénie. Perhaps there is as 
much risk with one as with the other. However, 
the vast majority of men who are not as old as 
Arnolphe much prefer a pious Agnes to a Celimenes 
in embryo. 

The two Maries were both short and slender; 
they had the same figure, the same foot, the same 
hand. Eugénie, the younger, was fair like her 
mother. Angélique was dark like her father, and 
yet both had the same complexion; their skin was 


214 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


of that mother-of-pearl whiteness which proclaims 
the richness and purity of the blood, with veins of 
color standing clearly out upon flesh as firm of tissue 
as the jasmine, and like it finely marked and smooth 
and soft to the touch. Eugénie’s blue eyes and 
Angélique’s brown eyes had the same expression of 
guileless temerity, of unaffected wonder, mainly 
due to the vague way in which the pupil floated on 
the white fluid of the eye. They were well-shaped; 
their shoulders were a trifle thin, but would fill out 
in due time. Their throats, so long veiled, dazzled 
the eye by their perfect loveliness when their hus- 
bands besought them to don low-necked dresses for 
their first ball; the two ignorant creatures there- 
upon experienced the fascinating sense of shame 
which kept them blushing for a whole evening be- 
hind closed doors. At the time when this scene 
opens, when the older sister was weeping and seek- 
ing consolation from her junior, their hands and 
arms had become as white as milk. Each of them 
had nursed a child, one a boy, the other a girl. 
Eugénie had seemed to her mother to be very sly, 
and she had redoubled her watchfulness and harsh- 
ness in her regard. In that dreaded mother’s eyes, 
the proud and stately Angélique seemed to possess 
a lofty mind which would be its own safeguard, 
while the roguish Eugénie required to be held in 
check. There are in the world lovely creatures, 
misunderstood by destiny, who ought to succeed in 
everything they undertake, but who live and die 
unhappy, tormented by an evil genius, victims of 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 215 


unforeseen circumstances. Thus the innocent, 
light-hearted Eugénie had fallen under the malicious 
despotism of a parvenu upon emerging from the 
maternal prison. Angélique, who was inclined to 
lofty conflicts of sentiment, had been tossed into the 
most exalted spheres of Parisian society with a 
halter about her neck. 

















ts ry lee 3 sy 
cv. 3 ¥ 3 
' = J €: > rh zt a 
ar tee sey aggre Wake Ne 
ba, sant Str doves eRe ene), 







SALTZ Pete ee eee 2 m ‘ 
ew ao bi a Sake 
Fe 4 Sy meee, ee fhe mate & ve 
tt tie foe help eh 


MME, DU TILLET AND MME. DE 
VANDENESSE 


Amid such luxurious surroundings, was tt not 


horrible? The countess could not summon courage 


to speak. 
“Poor darling,’ said Madame du Tillet, “what a 


False idea you must have of my marriage to have 


thought of coming to me for help!” 


* 


Madame de Vandenesse, who was evidently giving 
way under the burden of a grief that was too heavy 
for her heart to bear, innocent as it still was after 
six years of married life, was partly reclining, her 
legs half drawn up, her body bent double and her 
head wandering from side to side, as if it had lost 
its way, upon the back of the sofa. She had 
hastened to her sister’s house after a brief appear- 
ance at the Italiens, and still had a few flowers in 
her hair, but others were scattered about on the 
floor with her gloves, her fur-lined silk pelisse, her 
muff and her hood. Tears glistened among the 
pearls on her white breast, and her moist eyes be- 
tokened extraordinary disclosures. Amid such 
luxurious surroundings, was it not horrible? The 
countess could not summon courage to speak. 

‘*Poor darling,’’ said Madame du Tillet, ‘‘what a 
false idea you must have of my marriage to have © 
thought of coming to me for help!’’ 

As she listened to these words torn from the 
lowest depths of her sister’s heart by the fury of the 
storm she had poured into it, just as the snow- 
avalanche uproots the stones that are most firmly 
fixed in the torrent’s bed, the countess gazed stupidly 
at the banker’s wife, the fire of terror dried her tears 
and her eyes no longer wandered. 

(217) 


218 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


“‘Do you mean that you are in purgatory, too, my 
angel ?”’ she said in a low voice. 

‘*My woes will not allay your suffering. ’’ 

‘‘Tell me them, dear: child. I am not selfish 
enough yet to refuse to listen to you! So we are 
still suffering together as in our youth?” 

‘But we are suffering apart,’’ replied the banker’s 
wife ina melancholy tone. ‘‘We live in two hostile 
societies. I go to the Tuileries while you have 
ceased to go there. Our husbands belong to two 
opposite parties. 1 am the wife of an ambitious 
banker, a bad man, my precious treasure; you are 
the wife of a kind, noble, generous creature—’’ 

“Oh! don’t reproach me,’’ said the countess, 
“‘To do that a woman must have undergone the 
deathly weariness of a dull, colorless life, and have 
left it to enter the paradise of love; she must have 
known the bliss one feels to realize that one’s whole 
life is another’s, to marry the infinite emotions of a 
poetic soul, to live a twofold life; to go and come 
with him in his journeys through space, in the 
world of ambition; to suffer in his grief, to rise 
upon the wings of his unbounded joys, to display 
one’s talents on a vast stage, and to remain all the 
while calm and cold and serene before a curious 
world. Yes, my dear, one must often hold a whole 
ocean in her heart, when sitting, as we are now, on 
a sofa before the fire. And yet what bliss to have 
always, at every minute, an enormous interest 
at stake, that multiplies the fibres of the heart and 
stretches them; to be indifferent to nothing; to find 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 219 


one’s life depending on a drive where you will see 
a gleaming eye that makes the sun turn pale; to be 
excited by the least delay ;. to long to kill an annoy- 
ing creature who robs you of one of the rare 
moments when happiness beats madly in the tiniest 
veins! What ecstasy tolive! Ah! my dear love, 
to live when so many women are on their knees 
praying for the emotions that elude them! Remem- 
ber, my child, that for such poems there is but one 
time, youth. Ina few years the winter comes and 
the cold. Ah! if you possessed these living riches 
of the heart and were threatened with the loss of 
them—”’ 

Madame du Tillet had covered her face with her 
hands in dismay as she listened to this awful dirge. 

‘*I had no idea of reproving you in the slightest 
degree, my dearest,’’ she said at last, seeing the hot 
tears streaming down her sister’s cheeks. ‘‘You 
have thrown more firebrands into my heart in a 
moment, than my tears have extinguished. Yes, 
the life I lead would justify my heart in such a love 
as that you just described. Let me say, asI think, 
that we should not be where we now are if we had 
seen more of each other. If you had known of my 
suffering you would have appreciated your own good 
fortune; perhaps you would have emboldened me to 
resist, and I should be happy. Your unhappiness 
is an accident which a lucky chance will repair, 
while my unhappiness is constant and everlasting, 
In my husband’s eyes I am the portmanteau of his 
splendor, the signboard of his ambition, one of the 


220 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


gratifications of his vanity. He has neither true 
affection for me nor confidence in me. Ferdinand 
is as cold and smooth as this marble,’’ she said, 
laying her hand upon the mantel. ‘‘He distrusts 
me. Whatever I might ask for myself is refused in 
advance; but, as to anything that flatters him and 
advertises his fortune, I don’t even have to express 
a wish; he decorates my apartments, he spends 
enormous sums on my table. My servants, my boxes 
at the theatre, everything that makes a show ex- 
ternally is in the height of the fashion. His vanity 
spares no expense; he will trim his children’s 
swaddling-clothes with lace, but he won’t hear their 
cries or divine their needs. Do you understand 
me? I am covered with diamonds when | go to 
court; in society | wear the richest gewgaws; but 
I haven’t a sou at my disposal. Madame du Tillet, 
who arouses jealousy, perhaps, and who seems to 
be swimming in gold, hasn’t a hundred francs of 
her own. If the father doesn’t trouble himself 
about his children, he troubles himself even less 
about the mother. Ah! he’s taken a rough way of 
making me feel that he paid for me, and that my 
personal fortune, over which I have no control, was 
extorted from him. If I had nothing to do but master 
him, perhaps I might fascinate him; but I am sub- 
ject to the influence of a third person, a woman of 
fifty years and more, who has claims upon him 
and rules him,—she’s a notary’s widow. I havea 
feeling that I shall not be free until she is dead. 
My life here is as regular as a queen’s; I am 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 221 


summoned to breakfast and dinner as at your cha- 
teau. I invariably go out at a certain hour to drive 
in the Bois. 1 am always accompanied by two ser- 
vants in full livery, and must always return at a 
fixed hour. Instead of giving orders I receive them. 
At the ball, at the theatre, a footman comes and tells 
me: ‘Madame’s carriage is at the door,’ and | have 
no choice but to go, often in the midst of my enjoy- 
ment. Ferdinand would be angry if I did not con- 
form to the etiquette he has ordained for his wife, 
and he frightens me. Surrounded as I am by this 
accursed opulence, I regret the past and think of our 
mother as a kind mother; she left us at night and I 
could talk with you then; in short I was living with 
a being who loved me and suffered with me; while 
here, in this sumptuous mansion, I am in the midst 
of a desert.”’ 

At this terrible confession the countess seized her 
sister’s hand and kissed it, weeping. 

‘‘How can I help you?’’ Eugénie whispered. ‘‘If 
he should find us together, his suspicions would be 
aroused and he’d want to know what you’ve been 
saying to me for this last hour; then we must lie to 
him, and that’s a hard thing to do with so shrewd 
and treacherous a man; he’d set traps for me to fall 
into. Let us leave my woes and think of yourself. 
Your forty thousand francs, my dear, would be 
nothing to Ferdinand, who turns millions over and 
over with another vulgar banker, the Baron de 
Nucingen. Sometimes I am present at dinner when 
they say things to make one shudder. Du Tillet 


222 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


knows how discreet I am and they talk in my pres- 
ence without restraint; they are sure of my silence. 
Do you know murder on the highroad seems to me 
an act of charity compared to certain financial 
schemes! Nucingen and he think as little of ruin- 
ing people as | think of their extravagance. Often 
I receive poor dupes whose cases I have heard dis- 
cussed the night before, and who are plunging into 
enterprises where they are sure to leave their for- 
tunes: I long to say to them, as to Léonarde in the 
robbers’ cave: ‘Beware!’ But what would become 
of me? I hold mytongue. This magnificent house 
is the resort of cutthroats. And Du Tillet and 
Nucingen throw away thousand-franc notes by the 
handful to gratify their whims. Ferdinand buys 
the site of the old chateau at Le Tillet, intending to 
rebuild it and to add to it a forest and other magni- 
ficent properties. He declares that his son shall be 
a count, and that his descendants in the third gen- 
eration shall be noble. Nucingen is tired of his 
fine house on Rue Saint-Lazare and is building a 
palace. His wife is one of my friends. Ah!’’ she 
cried, ‘‘she may be of use to us; she is bold with 
her husband and has the control of her own fortune; 
she will save you.’’ 

‘*My dear puss, I have only a few hours; let’s go 
there to-night, this instant,’? said Madame de Van- 
denesse, throwing herself into Madame du Tillet’s 
arms, and bursting into tears. 

‘*‘What! can I go out at eleven at night?’’ 

**] have my carriage.’”’ 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 223 


‘‘What are you plotting here?’’ said Du Tillet, 
pushing open the boudoir door. 

He presented to the sisters a villainous counte- 
nance, lighted up by a deceitfully affable smile. 
The carpet had deadened the sound of his footsteps, 
and the pre-occupation of the two women had pre- 
vented their hearing the noise made by Du Tillet’s 
carriage entering the courtyard. The countess, in 
whom contact with the world and the perfect free- 
dom of action accorded her by Félix had developed 
the two qualities, wit and shrewdness, whose growth 
was still retarded in her sister’s case by the marital 
despotism which succeeded to that exercised by 
their mother, noticed that Eugénie’s alarm was on 
the point of betraying itself, and saved her bya 
ready response. 

“1 thought my sister was richer than she is,”’ 
said the countess, meeting her brother-in-law’s 
gaze. ‘‘Women sometimes get into a little trouble 
which they don’t care to mention to their husbands, 
like Joséphine and Napoléon, and I came to ask her 
to do me a favor.’”’ 

“‘She can easily do it, my dear sister. Eugé- 
nie is very rich,’’ replied Du Tillet with veiled 
malice. 

‘*She is rich only in your eyes, my brother,’’ re- 
torted the countess, smiling bitterly. 

‘What do you want?’’ said Du Tillet, not sorry 
to get a hold upon his sister-in-law. 

“*You silly fellow, didn’t I tell you that we don’t 
want to compromise ourselves with our husbands ?”’ 


224 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


replied Madame de Vandenesse significantly, real- 
izing that she was putting herself at the mercy of 
the man whose portrait had just been so faithfully 
drawn by her sister. ‘‘I will come and see Eugénie 
to-morrow.”’ 

‘*To-morrow ?”’ rejoined the banker coldly. ‘‘No. 
Madame du Tillet dines to-morrow with a future 
peer of France, Baron de Nucingen, who will leave 
me his seat in the Chamber of Deputies.”’ 

**Won’t you allow her to accept my box at the 
Opera ?’’ said the countess without even exchanging 
a look with her sister, so terrified was she that she 
would betray their secret. 

‘‘She has her own, sister,’’ said Du Tillet with 
an offended air. 

‘““Well, I will see her there,’’ retorted the countess. 

“It will be the first time you have done us that 
honor,’’ said Du Tillet. 

The countess felt the reproof and began to laugh. 

“‘Never fear, we won’t make you pay anything 
this time,’’ said she. ‘‘Farewell, my love.’’ 

“‘Impertinent hussy!’’ cried Du Tillet, picking up 
the flowers that had fallen from the countess’s head- 
dress. ‘‘You ought to study Madame de Vande- 
nesse,’’ he said to his wife. ‘‘I would like to see 
you as impertinent in society as your sister was 
here just now. You have an idiotic, bourgeois air 
that drives me mad.”’ 

Eugénie’s only reply was to raise her eyes to 
heaven. 

‘Well, madame, what have you two been up to 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 225 


here ?’’ said the banker after a pause, pointing to 
the flowers. ‘‘What’s going on that your sister 
should come to your box to-morrow ?”’ 

The poor serf took refuge in feigned sleepiness 
and left the room to undress, dreading a cross-ex- 
amination. Du Tillet thereupon took her by the 
arm, led her back and placed her in front of him in 
the light of the candles burning in silver-gilt arms 
between two lovely bouquets of flowers, and fixed 
his keen eyes upon hers. 

‘‘Your sister came here to borrow forty thousand 
francs, owed by a man in whom she takes an inter- 
est, and who will be boxed up like something of 
value on Rue de Clichy inside of three days,’’ said 
he coldly. 

The poor woman was seized with a fit of nervous 
trembling which she repressed. 

“*You frightened me,’’ said she. ‘‘But my sister 
has been too well brought up, she loves her husband 
too dearly to be so deeply interested in a man as 
that.’’ 

‘*You’re very much mistaken,’’ he replied drily. 
‘*Girls brought up as you two were in restraint and 
religious observances, are thirsty for liberty and 
long for happiness, and the happiness they attain 
is never so great nor so enjoyable as that they 
dreamed of. Such girls make bad wives.’’ 

‘‘Speak for me,’’ said poor Eugénie in a tone of 
bitter mockery, ‘‘but respect my sister. The Com- 
tesse de Vandenesse is too happy, her husband 
leaves her too free for her not to be attached to him. 

15 


226 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


Besides, if your supposition were true, she wouldn’t 
have told me anything about it.’’ 

“It is true,’? said Du Tillet. ‘‘I forbid your 
doing anything whatsoever in this business. It is 
for my interest that the man should go to prison. 
Consider it settled.’’ 

Madame Du Tillet left the room. 

‘*She will disobey me of course, and I shall know 
all they do by having them watched,’”’ said Du 
Tillet when he was left alone in the boudoir. 
‘‘The poor fools really think they have a chance 
with us!’’ 

He shrugged his shoulders and followed his wife, 
or, to speak more accurately, his slave. 


* 


Madame de Vandenesse’s confidences to Madame 
du Tillet bore upon so many points of her life during 
the last six years, that they would be unintelligible 
without a succinct narrative of the principal events 
in her history. 

Among the notable men who owed their fortunes 
to the Restoration, and whom, unluckily for itself, 
it neglected, as in the case of Martignac, to admit 
to the secrets of government, was Félix de Vande- 
nesse, who was banished, as were several others, to 
the Chamber of Peers in the last days of Charles X. 
This disgrace, although but momentary in his eyes, 
led him to think upon marriage, toward which he 
was impelled, as many men are, by a sort of dis- 
taste for love affairs, the wild flowers of youth. It 
is a supreme moment when social life appears in all 
its gravity. Félix de Vandenesse had been alter- 
nately lucky and unlucky, more frequently unlucky 
than lucky, as all men are who, at their first appear- 
ance in society, have encountered love in its most 
attractive form. Such privileged characters become 
hard to please. After having made a thorough test 
of life and compared the characters of many in- 
dividuals, they reach a point where they are content 
with an almost and take refuge in absolute self-in- 
dulgence. They are not deceived because they no 
longer seek to undeceive themselves; but they 

(227) 


228 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


resign themselves gracefully; by dint of being pre- 
pared for anything, they suffer less. Félix, how- 
ever, might still be considered one of the most 
winning and agreeable men in Paris. He had been 
particularly commended to the favor of the sex by 
one of the noblest creatures of the age, who died, it 
is said, of disappointment and of love for him; but 
his training had been the especial care of the 
beautiful Lady Dudley. In the opinion of many 
Parisian women, Félix, a sort of hero of romance, 
owed many of his conquests to all the hard things 
that were said of him. Madame de Manerville had 
brought his adventurous career to a close. Without 
being a Don Juan, he took his leave of the lover’s 
world as thoroughly disenchanted as he was with 
the world of politics. He despaired of ever falling 
in with his ideal of woman and of passion, which, 
to his undoing, had brightened and dominated his 
youth. 

As he approached his thirtieth year Comte Félix 
determined to put an end to the ennui of his con- 
quests by marrying. Upon one point his resolution 
was unalterable: he would take unto himself a 
young girl reared in the strictest tenets of cathol- 
icism. He needed no other inducement than a 
knowledge of the Comtesse de Granville’s manage- 
ment of her daughters to seek the hand of the older. 
He also had been subjected to a mother’s despotism ; 
he remembered enough of his long-suffering boy- 
hood to discover, despite the dissimulation of 
feminine modesty, to what condition the maternal 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 229 


yoke had brought a young girl’s heart; whether the 
heart was disappointed, soured, rebellious, or had 
remained tranquil and lovable and ready to give 
free access to the finer feelings. Tyranny produces 
two contrary effects, whose types are found in two 
great figures of ancient serfdom: Epictetus and 
Spartacus—hatred and its accompaniment of evil 
sentiments, resignation and its accompaniment of 
Christ-like meekness and affection. The Comte 
de Vandenesse recognized his own image in Marie- 
Angélique de Granville. 

When he took to wife an artless, pure, innocent 
girl, he resolved beforehand, like the young old man 
that he was, to combine the affection of a father 
with the affection of a husband. He felt that his 
own heart was withered by his experience in society 
and in politics, and he knew that he was giving the 
remains of a worn-out life in exchange for a bloom- 
ing, youthful life. He was placing the snows of 
winter beside the flowers of spring, the experience 
of a graybeard beside sprightly, unreflecting im- 
prudence. Having made this judicious survey of 
his position, he encamped in his conjugal quarters 
with abundant supplies. Indulgence and confidence 
were the two anchors upon which he relied. 
Mothers of families should seek such husbands for 
their daughters; intelligence is as trustworthy a 
protector as the Deity, disenchantment as _per- 
spicacious aS a surgeon, experience as wary as 
amother. These three qualities are the divine vir- 
tues of marriage. The delicacies and refinements 


230 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


which his habits as a lady’s man and a man of 
fashion had taught Félix de Vandenesse, the 
teachings of high political office, the observations 
he had made. during his whole life as a man devoted 
to business, a thinker and a man of letters one after 
the other, all his powers, in short, were exerted to 
make his wife happy, and he devoted his whole 
mind to the task. 

Upon emerging from the maternal purgatory, 
Marie-Angélique was suddenly borne aloft to the 
conjugal paradise Félix had constructed for her on 
Rue du Rocher, in a house where the smallest 
things had an aristocratic savor, but where the 
varnish of good society imposed no restraint upon 
the harmonious good-fellowship for which loving 
young hearts yearn. In the first place Marie- 
Angélique enjoyed in their entirety the delights of 
material life, for her husband during two whole 
years acted as her intendant. He explained to her 
gradually and with much skill the meaning of life, 
initiated her by degrees into the mysteries of good 
society, taught her the genealogies of all the noble 
families, described the world to her, instructed her 
in the art of making her toilette and of conversa- 
tion, took her from theatre to theatre, and put her 
through a course of literature and history. He 
educated her thus with the care of a lover, a father, 
a teacher anda husband; but with judicious gravity, 
he so managed her lessons and her recreations as 
not to destroy her religious sentiments. In short, 
he acquitted himself of his undertaking like a past 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 231 


master. After four years he had the satisfaction of 
having made the Comtesse de Vandenesse one of 
the most agreeable and most noteworthy women of 
her day. Marie-Angélique’s feeling for Félix was 
precisely that which he desired to inspire: genuine 
friendship, heartfelt gratitude and a fraternal love 
combined with such noble and dignified attachment 
as should exist between husband and wife. She 
was a mother and a good mother. Thus Félix 
bound his wife to himself by every possible tie 
without seeming to take her by the throat, and he 
relied for unclouded happiness upon the attractions 
of habit. 

Only those men who have been trained in the 
harsh school of life and have run through the whole 
gamut of political and amorous disillusionment, 
possess the science and can conduct themselves 
as he did. Moreover, he felt the same delight in 
his work that painters and writers and architects 
who rear noble structures feel in the creations of 
their talents; he experienced a twofold enjoyment 
in carrying on the work and in witnessing its suc- 
cess, in gazing with admiration on his wife, well- 
informed and artless, clever and natural, lovable 
and chaste, young girl and mother, perfectly free 
and yet in chains. The history of happy house- 
holds is like that of happy peoples; it can be 
written in two lines and has no literary interest. 
And so, as happiness can be explained only by 
itself, the story of these four years contains nothing 
which is not as soft as the purple hue of undying 


232 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


love, as insipid as manna, and as amusing as the 
romance of Asirée. 

In 1833 the edifice of happiness reared by Félix 
was tottering to its fall, undermined at its founda- 
tion, without the slightest suspicion on his part. 
The heart of the woman of twenty-five is no more 
identical with the heart of the girl of eighteen than 
that of the woman of forty is identical with that of 
the woman of thirty. There are four ages ina 
woman’s life. Each age creates a new woman. 
Vandenesse was doubtless acquainted with the laws 
governing these transformations due to our modern 
code of morals; but he forgot them in his own case, 
as the most accomplished grammarian may forget 
the rules of grammar when he writes a book, as the 
greatest general on the battlefield, under fire, per- 
plexed by the nature of the ground, may forget an 
invariable rule of the art of war. The man who 
can give enduring form to his thought by deeds is 
a man of genius; but the man who has the most 
genius does not display it at every instant—he 
would resemble God too closely. After four years 
of this life without a single heartache, without a 
word that produced the slightest semblance of dis- 
cord in this smooth-flowing harmony of sentiment, 
feeling that she had attained her full development, 
like a lovely plant in rich soil, beneath the caresses 
of a glorious sun shining in a sky whose azure is 
never marred by a cloud, the countess experienced a 
sort of reaction. This crisis in her life, the subject 
of this scene, would be incomprehensible without 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 233 


certain elucidations which will perhaps condone, 
in the eyes of women, the errors of this young 
countess, no less happy as. wife than as mother, 
although she will appear, at first glance, to have 
had no excuse therefor. 

Life is the result of the play of two contrary 
principles; when one is lacking the individual 
suffers. Vandenesse, by anticipating every want, 
had suppressed desire, the king of creation, which 
furnishes occupation for a vast amount of moral 
force. Extreme heat, extreme misery, perfect 
happiness, all abstract principles set up their 
thrones in desert places; they prefer to be alone, 
they stifle everything that is not themselves. Van- 
denesse was not a woman, and women alone know 
the art of imparting variety to felicity; hence their 
coquetry, their refusals, their fears, their quarrels, 
and the knowing, entertaining tricks by which they 
raise difficulties one day about something that 
offered no obstacle the day before. Men may bore 
one with their constancy, women never. 

Vandenesse’s nature was too entirely kind to 
permit him wilfully to annoy a wife whom he loved, 
and he transported her into the bluest, most cloud- 
less infinitude of love. The problem of everlasting 
beatitude is one of those whose solution is known 
only to God, in the other world. Here on earth 
the sublimest poets are forever tiring out their 
readers by undertaking a description of paradise. 
The reef upon which Dante came to grief was the 
same that wrecked Vandenesse; honor to courage in 


234 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


adversity! His wife came at last to be conscious of 
some monotony in an Eden so perfectly arranged; the 
unclouded happiness experienced by the first woman 
in the terrestrial paradise, causes the same feeling 
of nausea that the constant use of sweet things 
always causes at last, and made the countess long, as 
Rivarol did upon reading Florian, to fall in witha 
wolf in the sheepfold. This has always seemed to 
be the meaning of the emblematic serpent to which 
Eve applied, probably from ennui. This reflection 
will seem rather bold, perhaps, to Protestants, who 
take Genesis more seriously than the Jews them- 
selves. But the position of Madame de Vandenesse 
can be explained without biblical metaphors; she 
felt that there was a vast amount of unemployed 
force in her heart, her happiness caused her no 
suffering, it pursued the even tenor of its way 
without care or anxiety, she did not tremble from 
the fear of losing it, it appeared every morning with 
the same clear sky, the same smile, the same pleas- 
ant words. The smooth surface of the lake was 
ruffled by no breath, not even by the zephyr; she 
would have liked to see an undulation in the mirror- 
like expanse. There was an indefinable childish- 
ness in her longing which might well have served 
as her excuse; but society is no more indulgent 
than the God of Genesis. Having learned to use 
her wits the countess realized perfectly how dis- 
gusting such a feeling must be, and she could not 
bear the thought of confiding it to her dear litile 
husband. \n her simplicity she had invented no 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 235 


other pet name than this, for one cannot forge in 
cold natures the deliciously exaggerated language 
that love teaches its victims amid the flames. 

Vandenesse, delighted with his wife’s adorable 
reserve, detained her in the temperate latitudes of 
conjugal affection by his shrewd devices. Indeed, 
that model husband deemed unworthy of a noble 
heart the meretricious expedients which would have 
made him greater in her eyes and would have won 
for him a reward from her heart; he preferred to 
depend upon his own powers of pleasing and to owe 
nothing to the artifices of fortune. The Comtesse 
Marie smiled when she saw an incomplete or poorly 
set up equipage in the Bois; her eyes would com- 
placently return to the clock-like movement of her 
own horses in their English harness which left them 
almost free, and each keeping his proper position. 
Félix never lowered himself so far as to gather up 
the profits of the trouble he took; in his wife’s eyes 
his love of luxury and his good taste were quite 
natural; she was not grateful to him for the fact 
that her self-esteem was not wounded. It was so 
with everything. Kindness is not without its dis- 
advantages; people attribute it to one’s character, 
and are seldom willing to see in it the secret efforts 
of a noble heart, while they reward evil-minded 
men for the harm they do not do. 

About this time Madame Félix de Vandenesse 
reached the point where her education was so far 
advanced that she could lay aside the réle of timid, 
observing, listening supernumerary which Giulia 


236 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


Grisi played for some time, they say, in the chorus 
at La Scala. The young countess felt that she was 
competent to essay the part of prima donna, and 
she made several ventures in that direction. To 
Félix’s satisfaction she joined in conversation. In- 
genious repartees and shrewd observations, sown in 
her mind by her intercourse with her husband, drew 
attention to her, and success made her bold. Van- 
denesse, whose wife was universally admitted to be 
beautiful, was delighted when she acquired a reputa- 
tion for wit. On returning from a ball or a concert 
or a rout at which Marie had shone, she would say 
to Félix with a pleased and saucy expression, as she 
was undressing: ‘‘Were you satisfied with me to- 
night ?”’ 

The countess aroused some jealousy—among 
others on the part of her husband’s sister, the Mar- 
quise de Listomére, who had patronized her at first 
with the idea that she was taking under her wing 
one who would make an excellent background 
against which to display her own attractions. A 
countess named Marie, lovely, intellectual and vir- 
tuous, a musician and not a flirt—what a victim for 
society! There were several women in society 
with whom Félix de Vandenesse had broken, or 
who had broken with him, but who were not in- 
different to his marriage. When these women 
found Madame de Vandenesse to be a little bit of a 
creature with red hands, extremely diffident, with 
little to say for herself, and apparently little given 
to thinking, they thought they were sufficiently 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 237 


avenged. The disasters of July, 1830, supervened, 
society was dissolved for two years, people of 
wealth remained at their estates in the country or 
traveled in Europe while the agony lasted, and the 
salons did not reopen much before 1833. Faubourg 
Saint-Germain had the sulks, but it looked upon 
some houses, among others the Austrian ambas- 
sador’s, as neutral ground; legitimist society and 
the new society met there in the persons of their 
most fashionable leaders. 

Attached by a thousand ties of affection and 
gratitude to the exiled family, but strong in his 
matured convictions, Vandenesse did not feel called 
upon to imitate the absurdly extravagant perform- 
ances of his party. While the danger lasted he did 
his duty at the risk of his life by making his way 
through the waves of the populace to propose terms 
of accommodation; so he took his wife into society 
where his fidelity could never be brought in ques- 
tion. Vandenesse’s former lady friends found it 
difficult to recognize the young bride in the fashion- 
able, bright, sweet-spoken countess, who reappeared 
with the most exquisite manners of the female 
aristocracy. Mesdames d’Espard and De Maner- 
ville, Lady Dudley and some others less known 
were conscious of the awakening of serpents in the 
recesses of their hearts; they heard the soft hissing 
of angered pride, they were jealous of Félix’s 
happiness; they would willingly have given their 
prettiest slippers to have some harm befall him. 
Instead of showing hostility to the countess these 


238 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


kind unkind women thronged about her, were ex- 
cessively friendly to her, and praised her to the skies 
to the men. Having no doubt of their real inten- 
tions, Félix kept close watch upon their relations 
with Marie and told her not to trust them. One 
and all divined the discomfort their intercourse 
caused the count, they did not forgive his distrust 
of them, and they redoubled their attentions and 
devotion to their rival, who achieved a striking 
success through their efforts, to the great disgust of 
the Marquise de Listomére, who did not under- 
stand it at all. The Comtesse Félix de Vandenesse 
was said to be the most fascinating and cleverest 
woman in Paris. Marie’s other sister-in-law, Mar- 
quise Charles de Vandenesse, was annoyed again 
and again by the confusion caused by the identity 
of names and the comparisons to which it gave 
rise. Although the marchioness was also a very 
beautiful and accomplished woman, her sister-in- 
law’s rivals found it easy to make trouble between 
them because the countess was twelve years 
younger. These women knew how certain the 
countess’s success was to cause unpleasantness in 
her relations with her sisters-in-law, who became 
extremely cold and uncivil to the triumphant 
Marie-Angélique. 

These were dangerous allies, intimate enemies. 
Everyone knows that literature was at that time 
defending itself against the general indifference 
born of the political drama, by producing works 
more or less Byronic which treated of little else than 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 239 


conjugal shortcomings. In those days infractions of 
the marriage vow were the main support of reviews, 
books and the stage. This everlasting subject 
was never more fashionable. The lover, nightmare 
of husbands, was everywhere, except perhaps in 
real life, where he was less in evidence in those 
days of bourgeois supremacy than ever before. Do 
thieves select for their walks abroad the time when 
everybody is running to his window, shouting: 
‘‘Watch!”’ and lighting up the street? If, during 
these years which were so fruitful in municipal, 
political and moral agitation, matrimonial catastro- 
phes did happen, they were exceptions and did not 
attract so much attention as under the Restoration. 
Nevertheless women talked much among themselves 
of the subject that then engrossed the two forms of 
poesy: the book and the stage. There was fre- 
quent discussion of the lover, that rare and much 
desiderated creature. Such adventures as were 
noised abroad furnished food for gossip, and the 
burden of the gossip was, as always, sustained by 
the women of irreproachable character. A fact 
worthy of remark is the repugnance manifested by 
women who indulge in illicit enjoyment for discus- 
sions of this sort; they preserve a modest, reserved, 
almost timid demeanor in society; they have the 
air of requesting everyone to be silent, or to forgive 
them for their stolen pleasure. When, on the other 
hand, a woman takes delight in hearing of family 
catastrophes, when she listens to explanations of 
the joys which justify the culprits, be sure that she 


240 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


is at the cross-roads of indecision and does not 
know which road to take. 

During that winter the Comtesse de Vandenesse 
heard the loud voice of society bellowing in her 
ears, the tempests roared about her. Her pretended 
friends, who rose above their reputations by virtue 
of their eminent names and rank, sketched the 
seductive figure of the lover to her again and again, 
and poured into her heart burning words about love, 
the key to the enigma life propounds to womankind, 
the great passion, according to Madame de Stael, 
who practised what she preached. When the count- 
ess innocently asked, in private, what the differ- 
ence was between a husband and a lover, some one 
of the women who longed to do Vandenesse an 
injury would always reply in such a way as to 
excite her curiosity, put the spur to her imagina- 
tion, make an impression on her heart and interest 
her mind. 

**You exist with your husband, my dear, but you 
really live only with your lover,’’ said her sister- 
in-law, the Marquise de Vandenesse. 

‘*Marriage, my child, is our purgatory,’’ said 
Lady Dudley; ‘‘love is paradise.’’ 

“Don’t you believe her,’’ cried Mademoiselle des 
Touches, ‘‘it’s perfect hell !’’ 

‘‘But it’s a hell where one loves,’’ observed the 
Marquise de Rochefide. ‘‘There’s often more pleas- 
ure in suffering than in happiness; look at the 
martyrs !’’ 

‘‘With a husband, you little goose, we live our 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 241 


own life, so to speak; but to love is to live in an- 
other’s life,’’ said the Marquise d’Espard. 

“*A lover is forbidden fruit, a fact which sums up 
the whole thing so far as I am concerned,’’ said 
pretty Moina de Saint-Héren, laughingly. 


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When she was not in attendance upon diplomatic 
routs, or at a ball at the house of some wealthy for- 
eigner, like Lady Dudley or Princess Galathionne, 
the countess went into society almost every evening 
after the Italiens or the Opera—to the Marquise 
d’Espard’s, or Madame de Listomére’s or Mademoi- 
selle des Touches’ or the Comtesse de Montcornet’s 
or the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu’s, those being the 
only aristocratic houses then open; and she never 
left one of those houses that a few more poisonous 
seeds had not been sown in her heart. They talked 
to her about completing her life—an expression much 
in vogue at that time; about being understood— 
another expression to which women give extraor- 
dinary meanings. She would return home rest- 
less, excited, curious and thoughtful. It seemed 
to her that a vague something had gone from her 
life, but she did not go so far as to find it a desert. 

Among the salons frequented by Madame Félix 
the most entertaining, and the most mixed social 
circle, was to be found at the Comtesse de Montcor- 
net’s, a fascinating little woman, who received 
illustrious artists, kings of finance, and distinguished 
authors, but only after subjecting them to such 
severe scrutiny that those who were most exacting 
in the matter of their associates had no reason to 
fear that they should meet there anybody of inferior 
social standing. The most exalted pretensions were 

(243) 


244 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


free from danger there. During the winter, when 
society was rallying its forces, several salons, among 
which were Madame d’Espard’s and Madame de 
Listomére’s, Mademoiselle des Touches’ and the 
Duchesse de Grandlieu’s, had enlisted recruits 
among the latest celebrities in art, science, litera- 
ture and politics. Society never loses its rights, 
it always seeks to be entertained. At a concert 
given by the countess, toward the end of the winter, 
one of the contemporaneous lights of literature and 
politics made his appearance in her salon—Raoul 
Nathan,—presented by one of the cleverest but also 
one of the laziest authors of the age, Emile Blondet, 
another famous man, but only among his friends; 
bepraised by the journalists, but unknown beyond 
the barriers. Blondet knew it; moreover, he in- 
dulged in no illusions, and among other disdainful 
remarks he was accustomed to make was this—that 
fame was a poison that it was well to take in small 
doses. 

From the moment that he fought his way out into 
the light after a long struggle, Raoul Nathan had 
profited by the sudden admiration for form mani- 
fested by those dandified adulators of the Middle 
Ages, jocularly called Young France. He had 
affected the peculiarities of a man of genius, enroll- 
ing himself among those worshipers of art whose 
intentions, by the way, were excellent; for, although 
there could be nothing more absurd than the dress 
of Frenchmen in the Nineteenth Century, it re- 
quired courage to reform it. We must do Raoul 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 245 


the justice to say that there is in his person an in- 
definable something grand, grotesque and extraor- 
dinary, which requires a frame. His friends and 
his enemies, and they are about equal in number, 
agree that nothing could be more in accord with his 
mind than his body. Raoul Nathan would be more 
remarkable perhaps ina state of nature than he is 
with his surroundings. His seamed and wasted 
face gives him the appearance of having fought with 
angels or demons; it resembles the face that Ger- 
man painters give the dead Christ: it shows in- 
numerable traces of an unremitting conflict between 
weak human nature and the powers above. But 
the deep wrinkles in his cheeks, the indentations 
on his contorted, furrowed skull, the deep hollows 
about his eyes and in his temples indicate no weak- 
ness of constitution. His hard muscles and promi- 
nent bones have a remarkably robust appearance; 
and although his skin, made sallow by dissipation, 
clings closely to them as if internal fires had dried 
and shrunken it, it covers none the less a formidable 
framework. He is tall and thin. His long hair, 
always disarranged, aims for effect. This unkempt, 
ill-made Byron has the legs of a heron, swollen 
knees, an exaggerated swagger, hands strong as a 
crab’s claws, with muscles standing out like whip- 
cord, and thin, nervous fingers. He has Napoléonic 
eyes,—blue eyes whose glance pierces the soul; a 
twisted nose, cunning beyond description; a lovely 
mouth, embellished with the whitest teeth a woman 
could ask. There are fire and animation in the 


246 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


poise of his head, and genius on his brow. Raoul 
is one of the few men who attract your notice as 
they pass, and in a salon form a luminous point on 
which all eyes converge. He attracts attention by 
his négligé, if we may borrow from Moliére the word 
used by Eliante to describe the sloven. His clothes 
always look as if they had been rumpled and twisted 
and pulled about for the express purpose of making 
them harmonize with his countenance. He usually 
keeps one of his hands in his open waistcoat, in the 
attitude made famous by Girodet’s portrait of Mon- 
sieur de Chateaubriand; but he does it not so much 
to resemble him—for he prefers not to resemble 
anybody—as to disarrange the smooth folds of his 
shirt. His cravat is displaced in an instant by the 
convulsive movements of his head, which are ex- 
traordinarily quick and jerky, like those of blooded 
horses, fretting under their harness, who toss their 
heads incessantly in vain endeavors to get rid of the 
bit or the curb. His long, pointed beard is neither 
combed nor brushed nor scented nor trimmed, like 
those of the dandies who wear their beards fan- 
shaped or trimmed to a point; he leaves it as it is. 
His hair strays between his coat collar and his cra- 
vat, and falls luxuriantly over his shoulders, leaving 
a greasy mark on the spots it caresses. His thin, 
sinewy hands are unacquainted with the ministra- 
tions of the nail-brush and the luxury of the lemon. 
Several journalists will have it that holy water does 
not often refresh their calcined skin. In a word, 
the redoubtable Raoul is a grotesque creature. His 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 247 


movements are jerky as if produced by imperfect 
mechanism. His gait runs counter to all ideas of 
good order, with its enthusiastic zigzags and unex- 
pected pauses which bring him in violent contact 
with the pacific bourgeois walking along the boule- 
vards. 

His conversation, overflowing with caustic humor 
and bitter epigrams, copies the movements of his 
body: it suddenly abandons the revengeful tone and 
becomes soothing, poetic, consolatory and ram- 
bling; there are unexplicable pauses, and somer- 
saults of wit which sometimes become wearisome. 
His manner in society is audaciousl y awkward, con- 
temptuous of conventions, and he assumes a critical 
air with regard to everything that society respects, 
which gives him a bad name with small-minded folk 
as well as with those who strive to keep alive the 
old-time doctrines of courtesy; but there is some- 
thing original about it as there is about Chinese 
ornaments,—something that women do not dislike. 
Moreover, to them he sometimes displays unwonted 
affability, and seems to take pleasure in making 
them forget his outlandish appearance in achieving 
a victory over their antipathy which flatters his 
vanity, his self-esteem or his pride. 

‘*Why are you like this?’? the Marquise de Van- 
denesse asked him one day. 

‘*Aren’t pearls found in shells?’’ he replied pom- 
pously. 

To another person who put the same question to 
him he replied: 


248 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


“If | were attractive to everybody, how could | 
make myself more so to one chosen individual ?”’ 

Raoul Nathan carries into his intellectual life, the 
disorder he has taken for his ensign. Its announce- 
ment is not misleading; his talent resembles that of 
the poor girls who apply for positions as maid-of- 
all-work in bourgeois households. He was, first of 
all, a critic, and a great critic; but he detected fraud 
in that trade. His articles were worth as much as 
books, he said. The profits of the stage next fas- 
cinated him; but, being incapable of the slow, con- 
stant work demanded of a stage-manager, he was 
compelled to become associated with a vaudevillist, 
Du Bruel, who put his ideas in shape, and always 
succeeded in reducing them to productive little 
plays, running over with wit, and invariably writ- 
ten for some particular actor or actress. Between 
them they discovered Florine, an actress who made 
a great hit. Humiliated by a partnership resem- 
bling that of the Siamese twins, Nathan produced, 
unaided, at the ThéAatre-Francais, a great drama 
which fell with all the honors of war, amid the 
salvos of crushing newspaper articles. In his 
younger days he had made an attempt to enrich the 
great and noble French stage with a magnificent 
romantic play after the style of Pinto, at a time 
when the classical fad reigned supreme; but there 
was so much uproar and excitement at the Odéon 
for three evenings that the play was prohibited. 
In the eyes of many people, this second play, like 
the first, seemed a masterpiece, and won him more 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 249 


reputation than all the more profitable pieces 
written in collaboration with others,—among people 
whose opinion had little weight, however, namely 
connoisseurs and men of genuine good taste. 

‘‘Another such failure,’’ said Emile Blondet, ‘‘and 
you will become immortal.’’ 

But, instead of pursuing that rocky road, Raoul 
had from necessity fallen back upon the powder and 
patches of eighteenth century vaudeville, upon cos- 
tume plays, and scenic reproductions of successful 
books. Nevertheless, he was looked upon as a great 
mind, who had not said his last word. Indeed he 
had ventured into the loftier realms of literature 
and had published three novels, without counting 
those that he kept under lock and key, like fish in 
an artificial pond. One of these three books—the 
first, as is the case with many authors who have 
never succeeded in writing more than one book— 
was brilliantly successful. This artistic work being 
rashly assigned the highest rank, he was accustomed 
to refer to it on all occasions as the finest book of 
the age, the only novel of the century. He com- 
plained loudly, however, of the exigences of art; he 
was one of those who were most instrumental in 
enrolling all forms of artistic production, the picture, 
the statue, the book, the edifice, under the single 
banner of Art. He began by putting forth a collec- 
tion of verses which entitled him to a place in the 
constellation of poets of the present day, and among 
which there was one mystical poem that was much 
admired. Being compelled by his lack of means to 


250 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


earn his living, he wandered from the stage to the 
press, from the press to the stage, dissipated and 
extravagant, trusting always to his lucky star. His 
renown therefore was not unpublished like that of 
a number of expiring celebrities, kept alive by the 
titles of forthcoming works, which will not have as 
many editions as they need markets. Nathan re- 
sembled a man of genius; and if he had gone to the 
scaffold, as he was once seized with a longing to do, 
he might have struck his hand against his brow 
after the manner of André de Chénier. He was at- 
tacked by political ambition when he witnessed the 
irruption into the government of a score of authors, 
professors, metaphysicians and historians, who 
grafted themselves on the machine during the 
troubles from 1830 to 1833, and he regretted that he 
had not written political rather than literary articles. 
He deemed himself superior to these upstarts, whose 
elevation aroused consuming jealousy in his heart. 
He was one of those men who are jealous of every- 
body and capable of anything, whose triumphs are 
always stolen from them, and who go stumbling 
along toward one luminous point after another with- 
out establishing themselves at any one, and forever 
wearing out the good will of their neighbors. At 
this particular time he was on his way from Saint- 
Simonism to republicanism, to return, perhaps, to 
ministerialism. He had his bone to gnaw in every 
corner, and was on the lookout for a safe place 
where he could bark at pleasure out of reach of 
blows and make himself an object of fear; but he 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 251 


had the humiliation of seeing that he was not taken 
seriously by the illustrious De Marsay, who was 
then at the head of the government and had no con- 
sideration for authors in whom he could not detect 
what Richelieu called the spirit of sequence, or, 
better still, sequence in his ideas. Furthermore, 
any ministry must have taken into account the con- 
stant confusion of Raoul’s affairs. Sooner or later, 
necessity would bring him to the point where he 
must submit to conditions instead of imposing them. 
Raoul’s real but sedulously hidden character is in 
accord with his public performance. He is an actor 
in good faith, as self-satisfied as if the State were 
he, and a very clever declaimer. Noone knows bet- 
ter than he how to feign sentiment, to pride himself 
upon false grandeur, to deck himself out with fine 
moral aphorisms, to maintain his dignity in words, 
and to pose as an Alceste while adopting the 
methods of a Philinte. His selfishness trots along, 
protected by this armor of painted pasteboard, and 
often attains the secret goal at which it aims. 
Slothful to the last degree, he has never done any- 
thing except when goaded by the spear-points of 
necessity. The unremitting toil necessarily ex- 
pended upon the creation of a monument he knows 
nothing of; but in the paroxysm of rage brought on 
by a wound inflicted upon his vanity, or at a crisis 
precipitated by a creditor, he leaps the Eurotas and 
triumphs over the most difficult mental banking 
operations. Then, worn out and amazed to find 
that he has really created something, he falls back 


252 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


into the slough of Parisian dissipation. His neces- 
sities become alarming; he has expended all his 
strength, so he descends from his high estate and 
compromises himself. Induced by a mistaken idea 
of his own grandeur and his future, which he meas- 
ures by the exalted fortune of an old comrade of his, 
one of the few men with a genius for administration 
brought to light by the Revolution of July, he so 
far demeans himself, in order to get clear of the 
difficulty, as to play unconscionable tricks upon 
people who are attached to him—tricks that are 
buried in the mysteries of private life, and of which 
no one ever speaks or complains. The frivolity of 
his heart, the effrontery of the grasp of his hand, in 
which are gathered all the vices, unhappiness and 
treachery in every guise, and every shade of opin- 
ion, have made him as inviolable as a constitutional 
king. Thevenial sin, which would raise a hue and 
cry at the heels of a man of high character, is of no 
consequence in him; an indelicacy is almost noth- 
ing, and everybody makes excuses for himself by 
excusing him. The very man who might be 
tempted to despise him offers him his hand, fear- 
ing that he may need him. He has so many friends 
that he longs for foes. His apparent good-fellow- 
ship, which attracts newcomers and interferes with 
no act of treachery, which takes great liberties and 
justifies everything, which cries aloud at an injury 
and forgives it, is one of the distinguishing charac- 
teristics of the journalist. This camaraderie, a word 
invented by a bright man, corrodes the noblest 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 253 


hearts; it eats away their pride, destroys the active 
principle of great exploits, and makes of mental 
cowardice a sacred thing. By exacting this plia- 
bility of conscience from everybody, certain people 
seek to obtain absolution for their own treachery 
and backsliding. That is how the most enlightened 
portion of a nation may become the least estimable. 

From a literary standpoint Nathan lacks style and 
thoroughness. Like the majority of young men 
ambitious of literary renown, he disgorges to-day 
what he learned yesterday. He has neither the 
time nor the patience to write; he has not been an 
observant man, but he listens well. Incapable of 
constructing a vigorous, well-knit plot, he saves his 
reputation perhaps by the fervid enthusiasm of his 
sketch. He plays at passion—to use a bit of literary 
slang,—because in genuine passion everything is 
true; while it is the mission of genius to seek 
among the chance developments of the true for what 
is likely to seem probable to everybody. Instead of 
awakening novel ideas, his heroes are simply exag- 
gerated personalities, who arouse only momentary 
sympathy; they have no relation to the important 
interests of life, and for that reason they represent 
nothing; but he maintains his position by the rapid 
working of his mind, by those lucky hits which 
billiard-players call flukes. None so skilful as he, 
at shooting on the wing, the ideas that hover over 
Paris or that Paris beats up. His fertility is not 
his own, but the time’s: he lives upon passing 
events, and, in order to control them, stretches them 


254 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


too far. In short, he is not genuine; his words are 
false; there is, as Comte Félix said, something of 
the sleight-of-hand artist about him. We can feel 
that his pen gets its ink in an actress’s closet. 
Nathan is a fair type of the literary youth of to- 
day, its fictitious grandeur and its real misery; he 
represents it with its faulty beauty and its crushing 
failures, its life of foaming torrents, sudden reverses, 
unhoped-for triumphs. He is the true child of this 
jealousy-ridden age, when innumerable rivalries 
under cover of projects of all sorts are nourishing for 
their own benefit the hydra of anarchy, born of all 
their errors—the age which seeks fortune without 
labor, glory without talent, success without strife; 
but which, after many rebellions and many skir- 
mishes, its vices are forcing to trim down the budget 
at the pleasure of Power. When so many youthful 
ambitions set out on foot, and are all bound for the 
same point, there is a constant clashing of wills, 
incredible suffering, desperate strife. In this 
ghastly struggle, the most violent or the most wary 
egoism gains the victory. The example thus set is 
envied and extenuated, despite the hullabaloo, as 
Moliére would say; and others follow it. 


* 


When Raoul made his appearance in Madame de 
Montcornet’s salon in the capacity of an enemy of 
the new dynasty, his apparent grandeur was in a 
flourishing condition. He was accepted as the 
political critic of the De Marsays, the Rastignacs, 
the La Roche-Hugons, who formed the government. 
Emile Blondet, Nathan’s sponsor, always the victim 
of his fatal hesitation and of his repugnance to do 
anything that concerned himself alone, was still 
playing the rdle of scoffer, took sides with nobody 
and was on good terms with everybody. He was 
Raoul’s friend, Rastignac’s friend, Montcornet’s 
friend. 

“*You’re a political triangle,’? De Marsay once 
said to him, when he met him at the Opera; ‘‘that 
particular geometrical figure is suitable only for 
God, who hasn’t anything to do; but ambitious 
men ought always to follow a curved line, the 
shortest road in politics. ’’ 

Seen at a distance, Raoul Nathan was a very 
striking meteor. Fashion authorized his manners 
and his apparel. His borrowed republicanism gave 
him for the moment the Jansenist asperity assumed 
by the defenders of the popular cause,—at whom he 
sneered internally,—and which is not without a 
certain fascination in a woman’s eyes. Women 
love to perform miracles, to crush stones, to melt 

(255) 


256 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


natures that seem to be of bronze. Thus Raoul’s 
moral toilette was at this time in harmony with his 
bodily garb. He was fitted to be and was, for the 
Eve wearied of her paradise on Rue du Rocher, the 
glistening, many-hued serpent, he of the honeyed 
words, magnetic eyes and graceful motions, who 
destroyed the first woman. As soon as the Com- 
tesse Marie’s eyes fell upon Raoul, she was con- 
scious of an internal commotion so violent as almost 
to terrify her. This pseudo-great man, by his 
glance alone, exerted a physical influence upon her 
that reached to her heart and caused a turmoil there. 
The turmoil affected her pleasantly. The purple 
cloak that fame threw for a moment over Nathan’s 
shoulder dazzled the guileless creature. 

When the time for serving tea arrived, Marie left 
the place where she had been sitting with several 
ladies who were busily talking; she was disturbing 
herself about this extraordinary being. Her silence 
was noticed by her pretended friends. She ap- 
proached the square divan in the centre of the salon 
where Raoul was holding forth. She remained 
standing, leaning on the arm of Madame Octave de 
Camps, a dear, good woman, who never breathed 
a word as to the involuntary trembling that betrayed 
her intense excitement. Although the eye of a 
woman in love or taken by surprise allows glances 
of incredible sweetness to escape it, Raoul was dis- 
charging at that moment a veritable shower of fire- 
works; he was too much engrossed by his epigrams 
which went off like bombs, by his accusations, 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 257 


darting hither and thither like spluttering suns, by 
the flaming portraits he was drawing in fiery 
strokes, to remark the artless admiration of a poor 
little Eve, hidden in the group of women that sur- 
rounded him. Such curiosity as theirs, the counter- 
part of that which would cause all Paris to rush to 
the Jardin des Plantes to see a unicorn if one should 
be found in the famous Mountains of the Moon, still 
untrodden by European feet,—such curiosity intox- 
icates second-rate minds as much as it saddens the 
truly lofty-minded; but it enchanted Raoul; he was 
therefore too devoted to all the ladies to be devoted 
to a single one. 

‘*Take care, my dear,’’ whispered Marie’s kind, 
thoughtful companion, ‘‘you had better go.”’ 

The countess looked at her husband to ask him 
for his arm with one of the glances husbands do not 
always understand: Félix took her away. 

**My dear boy,’’ said Madame d’Espard in Raoul’s 
ear, ‘‘you’re a lucky rascal. You have made more 
than one conquest to-night, and among others, the 
charming woman who left us so abruptly.”’ 

‘*What do you suppose the Marquise d’Espard un- 
dertook to tell me?’’ Raoul asked Blondet, repeating 
the great lady’s remark to him when they were 
almost alone, between one and two o’clock in the 
morning. 

‘Why, I heard that the Comtesse de Vandenesse 
had fallen madly in love with you. You’re not to 
be pitied. ”’ 

**] didn’t see her,’’ said Raoul. 

17 


258 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


“Oh! you’ll see her, you rascal,’’ said Blondet, 
roaring with laughter. ‘‘Lady Dudley made you 
promise to go to her great ball so that you may meet 
her.”’ 

Raoul and Blondet left the house with Rastignac, 
who offered them seats in his carriage. All three 
laughed heartily at the idea of an eclectic under-sec- 
retary of state in company with a ferocious repub- 
lican and a political atheist. 

‘*Suppose we take supper at the expense of the 
existing order of things?’’ suggested Blondet, who 
wished to restore suppers to favor. 

Rastignac took them to Véry’s, sent away his 
carriage, and they took their seats around the fes- 
tive board, analyzing society as it is to-day, and 
laughing with Rabelaisian glee. In the course of 
the supper, Rastignac and Blondet advised their 
supposititious foe not to neglect such a capital oppor- 
tunity as was offered him. The two roués gave him 
a satirical sketch of Marie de Vandenesse’s history ; 
with the scalpel of the epigram and the keen point 
of the bon mot they dissected her innocent child- 
hood, her happy married life. Blondet congratu- 
lated Raoul upon having met a woman who was as 
yet guilty of nothing worse than wretched drawings 
in red chalk, paltry water-color landscapes, slippers 
embroidered for her husband, and sonatas executed 
with the purest intentions; tied for eighteen years 
to her mother’s petticoat,. preserved in religious 
ceremonial, dressed by Vandenesse, and cooked to a 
turn by marriage, to be tasted by love. At the third 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 259 


bottle of champagne, Raoul Nathan became more 
communicative than he had ever been with any- 
body. 

‘*My friends,’’ said he, ‘‘you know my relations 
with Florine, you know what my life is, and you 
will not be surprised to hear my confession that | 
have absolutely no idea of the color of a countess’s 
love. I have often felt deeply humiliated to think 
that I could not take to myself a Beatrice or a Laura 
except in poetry! A pure, noble woman is like an 
unsullied conscience which shows us to ourselves in 
attractive guise. We may sully ourselves, you 
know; but with such a woman we remain great and 
proud and immaculate. We lead wild lives; but 
with such a woman we find tranquillity and refresh- 
ment and the verdure of the oasis.”’ 

“Come, come, my boy,’’ said Rastignac, ‘‘give 
us the prayer of Moses on the fourth string, a la 
Paganini.”’ 

Raoul sat silent, his eyes staring into vacancy. 

*‘This low-lived minister’s apprentice doesn’t 
understand me,’’ he said, after a pause. 

Thus, while the poor Eve of Rue du Rocher lay 
between the swaddling-clothes of humiliation, ter- 
rified at the thought of the pleasure with which she 
had listened to this sham great poet, and hesitating 
between the stern voice of her gratitude to Van- 
denesse and the honeyed words of the serpent, these 
three shameless wits were trampling on the tender, 
white flowers of her nascent love. Ah! if women 
but knew what a cynical tone these men, who are 


260 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


so patient and wheedling in their presence, adopt 
when they are out of sight, how they would mock 
at what they now adore! How they tore the 
blooming, fascinating, modest creature to pieces and 
analyzed her in their facetious way! but what a 
triumph for her, too! The more veils she lost, the 
more beauties she disclosed. 

Marie at that moment was comparing Raoul to 
Félix, with no suspicion of the risk run by the heart 
in drawing such parallels. No two men in the world 
afforded a more striking contrast than the powerful, 
dishevelled Raoul and Félix de Vandenesse, curled 
and combed like any dandy, arrayed in clothes of 
faultless cut, endowed with charming ease of man- 
ner, a disciple of the English school of elegance to 
which Lady Dudley had long ago admitted him. 
Such a contrast pleases the imagination of women 
who are sufficiently interested to pass from one ex- 
treme to the other. The countess, a virtuous and 
pious woman, forbade herself to think of Raoul, 
accusing herself the next day, in her paradise, of 
being a detestably ungrateful creature. 

‘‘What do you think of Raoul Nathan ?’”’ she asked 
her husband at breakfast. 

‘A mere sleight-of-hand performer,’’ was the 
count’s reply; ‘‘one of those volcanoes that can be 
made to subside with a little gold-dust. The Com- 
tesse de Montcornet did wrong to admit him to her 
house. ’’ 

This reply was the more crushing to Marie in that 
Félix, who was thoroughly posted in literary matters, 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 261 


supported his opinion by proofs, relating what 
he knew of Raoul Nathan’s hand-to-mouth life, 
bound up with that of Florine, a famous actress. 

“If the man has genius,’’ he concluded, ‘‘he has 
neither the application nor the patience which con- 
secrate it and make ita divine thing. He tries to 
impose upon society by placing himself on a level 
where he can’t maintain himself. Men of genuine 
talent, studious, honorable men, don’t do as he does; 
they go their way courageously, accept their pov- 
erty and don’t cover it up with tinsel.”’ 

A woman’s mind is endowed with incredible elas- 
ticity: when it receives a stunning blow, it bends, 
seems utterly crushed, and soon resumes its original 
shape. 

“Félix is right, of course,’’ the countess said to 
herself at first. 

But three days later she was thinking of the ser- 
pent once more, led back to him by the sweet, yet 
painful emotion Raoul had awakened in her, and 
which Vandenesse had been foolish enough never to 
cause her to feel. 





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The count and countess went to Lady Dudley’s 
great ball, at which De Marsay made his last ap- 
pearance in society, for he died two months later, 
leaving behind him the reputation of a most eminent 
statesman, whose capacity, said Blondet, was past 
comprehension. Vandenesse and his wife found 
Raoul Nathan in that assemblage, which was partic- 
ularly remarkable for the presence of several charac- 
ters in the political drama of the day who were 
much surprised to find themselves together. It was 
one of the first solemn functions in high society. 
The salons presented a magic spectacle; flowers, 
diamonds, gorgeous headgear, all the emptied 
jewel-cases, all the resources of the toilette brought 
under contribution. The whole might be compared 
to one of those artistic hothouses in which wealthy 
horticulturists collect the loveliest exotics. Here 
was the same brilliancy of color, the same delicacy 
of tissue. Human handicraft seemed eager for the 
conflict with animate works of nature. On all sides 
were gauzes, white or colored like the wings of the 
loveliest of dragon-flies, crépes, laces, silks, tulles 
as many-hued as the caprices of nature in bird-life, 
pinked and waved and flounced, gold and silver 
spiders’ webs, waving mists of silk, flowers em- 
broidered by fairies or brought to perfection by im- 
prisoned genii, feathers dyed by the fierce tropical 

(263) 


264 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


sun waving like weeping willows over haughty 
heads, strings of pearls woven into mats, and dress- 
stuffs smooth and rough and ribbed, as if the genius 
of arabesques had acted as adviser to the French 
manufacturers. 

This magnificence was in harmony with the 
beautiful women assembled there as if to form a 
keepsake. The eye beheld the whitest of shoulders, 
some of the hue of amber, others so glossy that it 
seemed as if they must have been passed between 
heavy cylinders, these with the sheen of satin, those 
dead-white and plump as if Rubens had prepared 
the paste, —in fine, all the variations of white known 
to mankind. There were eyes that sparkled like 
the onyx or the turquoise, bordered with black velvet 
or with a fringe of long, blonde lashes; faces of 
many shapes which recalled the most attractive 
types of the different countries; foreheads sublime 
and majestic, or with a graceful outward curve as if 
thought abounded there, or flat as if resistance un- 
subdued were there enthroned; and then, the thing 
that adds so much to the attractiveness of a féte 
designed for show, there were breasts that overlay 
each other as George IV. liked them, or separated 
after the fashion of the eighteenth century, or with 
a tendency to draw near each other, as Louis XV. 
preferred them; but exhibited without shame and 
without covering, except perhaps one of the pretty 
little ruffled tuckers to be seen in Raphael’s por- 
traits, the triumph of his patient pupils. The pret- 
tiest of feet itching for the dance, waists abandoned 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 265 


to the waltzer’s arm, gave a fillip to the attention 
of the most indifferent. The melodious hum of 
sweetest voices, the rustling of dresses, the murmurs 
of the contradance, the rhythmic beat of the waltz 
furnished a fantastic accompaniment to the music. 
It seemed as if a fairy’s wand must have called into 
being this scene of overpowering witchery, this 
melody of sweet odors, the lights that were reflected 
in all the colors of the rainbow in the crystal sconces 
where the candles twinkled, and the pictures multi- 
plied by the mirrors. 

This throng of lovely women and lovely toilettes 
stood out in bold relief against the black mass of the 
men, where the blonde moustaches and serious faces 
of the English were mingled with the clean-cut, 
refined, classic profiles of the nobles, and the gracious 
countenances of the French aristocracy. All the 
orders of Europe gleamed upon their breasts, hang- 
ing about their necks, worn saltire-wise, or falling 
at the hip. To one who closely scrutinized this 
great assemblage, it not only presented the brilliant 
hues of magnificent attire,—it had a soul, it lived 
and thought and felt. Hidden passions imparted to 
it features of its own: you would have seen malev- 
olent glances exchanged, giddy, inquisitive young 
girls in white betraying a desire, jealous women 
wagging their evil tongues behind their fans or 
paying one another fulsome compliments. Society, 
bedizened, curled and perfumed, yielded to a sort of 
festal frenzy, that went to the brain like a powerful 
vapor. It was as if from every brain as from every 


266 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


heart emotions and ideas found vent, and were con- 
densed into a solid mass which reacted upon the 
least imaginative persons and excited them. 

At the moment when the animation of this soul- 
stirring festivity was at its height, in a corner of 
the gilded salon where one or two bankers, ambas- 
sadors, former ministers, and wicked old Lord Dud- 
ley, whose presence was accidental, were playing 
cards, Madame Félix de Vandenesse was irresistibly 
impelled to enter into conversation with Nathan. 
It may be that she fell a victim to the ball-room in- 
toxication which has often extorted confessions from 
the most discreet women. 

At the sight of this festive throng and the splen- 
dors of a world to which he had never before been 
admitted, Nathan’s ambition redoubled and gnawed 
at his heart. When he looked upon Rastignac, 
whose younger brother had just been appointed 
bishop at twenty-seven years of age, whose brother- 
in-law, Martial de la Roche-Hugon, was in the min- 
istry, and who was himself an under-secretary of 
state and was to marry, so rumor had it, the Baron 
de Nucingen’s only daughter; when he saw in the 
diplomatic corps, an unknown scribbler who trans- 
lated foreign newspapers for a journal that had come 
over to the new dynasty in 1830; when he saw 
editorial writers admitted to the Council of State, 
professors made peers of France, he sadly concluded 
that he was on the wrong tack preaching the over- 
throw of this aristocracy where fortunate talents 
shone, and discretion crowned by success, and 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 267 


genuine superiority. Blondet, who was so unfortu- 
nate, so thoroughly worked out in journalism, but so 
well received at that house—he could still, if he chose, 
make a fresh start on the road to fortune as a re- 
sult of his liaison with Madame de Montcornet—was 
in Nathan’s eyes a striking example of the power 
of social connections. Deep down in his heart he 
determined to snap his fingers at opinions after the 
fashion of the De Marsays, Rastignacs and Blondets, 
and of Talleyrand, the leader of the sect; to accept 
nothing but facts; to twist them to serve his own 
purposes, to see in every scheme a weapon, and not 
to disturb so well-constituted, attractive and natural 
a society. 

‘*My future,’’ he said to himself, ‘‘depends upon 
a woman who belongs to this circle.’’ 

Acting upon this thought, conceived in the flames 
of a frenzied desire, he fell upon the Comtesse de 
Vandenesse like a vulture upon its prey. The 
charming creature, so pretty in her headdress of 
marabou feathers which produced the deliciously 
soft effect of Lawrence’s paintings, quite in harmony 
with her sweet disposition, was carried away by 
the ambition-mad poet’s seething energy. Lady 
Dudley, whom nothing escaped, shielded this epi- 
sode by handing the Comte de Vandenesse over to 
Madame de Manerville. This lady, strong in her 
former ascendancy, steered Félix out upon the broad 
waters of a quarrel accompanied with much entice- 
ment, with whispered confidences embellished by 
blushes, with regrets shrewdly tossed at his feet 


268 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


like flowers, and with recriminations whereby she 
put herself in the right for the sake of being put in 
the wrong. These two disunited lovers spoke for 
the first time from ear to ear. 

While her husband’s former mistress was digging 
among the ashes of extinct pleasures, trying to find 
a few live coals there, Madame Félix de Vandenesse 
was experiencing the violent palpitations of the heart 
caused by a woman’s certainty that she is doing 
wrong and is treading on forbidden ground: emo- 
tions which are not without charm and which 
awaken many slumbering powers. To-day, as in 
the tale of Bluebeard, all women love to use the 
blood-stained key; a magnificent mythological idea, 
one of the glories of Perrault. 

The sorry dramatist, who knew his Shakespeare 
thoroughly, unfolded his wretchedness, described 
his struggle with men and things, hinted at his 
baseless greatness, his unsuspected genius for poli- 
tics, his life which contained no lofty sentiment. 
Without expressing it in words, he suggested to this 
charming creature the idea of playing for him the 
sublime réle played by Rebecca in /vanhoe: of lov- 
ing and shielding him. The whole interview was 
carried on in the ethereal regions of sentiment. The 
myosotis is no bluer, the lily is no purer, the brow 
of the seraph no fairer than were the images, the 
words and the animated, radiant brow of this artist, 
who might have sent his conversation to his pub- 
lisher. He played his réle of reptile to perfection, 
he dangled before the countess’s eyes the brilliant 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 269 


colors of the fatal apple. Marie left the ball suffer- 
ing from remorse that was akin to hope, tickled by 
compliments that flattered her vanity, moved to 
the deepest recesses of her heart, entrapped by her 
very virtues, seduced by her pity for misfortune. 

Perhaps Madame de Manerville had guided Van- 
denesse to the salon where his wife was talking 
with Nathan; perhaps he had been there of his own 
motion, looking for Marie to take her home; per- 
haps his conversation had given new life to deadened 
chagrin. However that may be, when she went to 
him to ask him for his arm, his wife found him in 
a reverie, with clouded brow. The countess feared 
that she had been seen. As soon as she was alone 
in the carriage with Félix, she bestowed her most 
coaxing smile upon him and said: 

‘‘Weren’t you talking with Madame de Maner- 
ville, my dear ?”’ 

Félix had not emerged from the underbrush into 
which his wife led him by a delicious little quarrel 
on that theme when the carriage drove into their 
courtyard. It was the first stratagem dictated by 
love. Marie was overjoyed with her triumph over 
the man who had hitherto seemed so superior to her. 
She tasted the first thrill of delight afforded by in- 
dispensable success. 








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* 


In a passageway between Rue Basse-du-Rempart 
and Rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, on the third floor of 
a narrow, ugly house, Raoul hada small, comfortless, 
bare, uninviting suite of rooms, where his home was 
for the general public, for literary neophytes, for his 
creditors, and for the different varieties of pests and 
bores who should be kept at the threshold of a man’s 
private life. His real domicile, the scene of his 
grandeur, the stage upon which he acted, was at 
Mademoiselle Florine’s, a second-rate actress to 
whom Nathan’s friends, certain newspapers and 
some few authors had for ten years past awarded a 
place among illustrious artists. For ten years Raoul 
had been so closely attached to this woman that he 
passed half his life with her; he took his meals 
there, when he had no friend to entertain and no 
invitation to dine out. 

Florine combined absolutely corrupt morals with 
exquisite wit, which constant intercourse with 
artists had developed, and which became keener 
every day. Wit is supposed to be a rare accom- 
plishment among actors. It is so natural to suppose 
that people who spend their lives displaying every- 
thing on the outside have nothing within! But, if 
we consider the small number of actors and actresses 
in every generation, and the multitude of dramatic 
authors and fascinating women these people have 

(271) 


272 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


furnished, it is easy to refute that opinion, which is 
founded upon a criticism everlastingly made upon 
dramatic artists, who are charged, one and all, with 
losing sight of their personal feelings in the mechan- 
ical expression of the passions, whereas they really 
employ no other forces than those of wit, memory 
and imagination. Great artists, as Napoléon said, 
are beings who intercept at will the communication 
established by nature between the feelings and the 
thought. Moliére and Talma in their old age were 
more amorous than the average man. Compelled to 
listen to journalists who divine everything by cal- 
culation, to authors who foresee and talk about 
everything, and to watch certain political charac- 
ters, who made the most of every Sally he heard 
in her salon, Florine presented a combination of 
angel and devil which made her worthy to receive 
these roués; she enchanted them by her sang-froid. 
Her abnormal qualities of mind and heart pleased 
them beyond description. Her house, enriched by 
tributes from her lovers, was furnished with the ex- 
aggerated magnificence characteristic of women who 
care little for the price of things, but only for the 
things themselves, and estimate their value by their 
caprice; who in a fit of rage shatter a fan or a vin- 
aigrette a queen might envy, and raise an uproar if 
you break a porcelain dish worth ten francs, out of 
which their little dogs lap. 

Her dining-room, filled to overflowing with the 
choicest offerings, will serve to convey an idea 
of the chaotic aspect of this disdainful, royal 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 273 


magnificence. Everywhere, even on the ceiling, 
was a carved wainscoting of natural oak, relieved 
by mouldings of unburnished gold, the panels framed 
with children playing with chimeras, in which lights 
twinkled, shining here upon a sketch by Decamps, 
there upon a plaster angel holding a bénitier pre- 
sented by Antonin Moine; farther on, a dainty pic- 
ture by Eugéne Devéria, the sombre figure of a 
Spanish alchemist by Louis Boulanger, an auto- 
graph letter from Lord Byron to Caroline in an 
ebony frame carved by Elschoet; opposite, a letter 
from Napoléon to Joséphine. All this arranged 
with no attempt at symmetry, but with impercep- 
tible art. One’s wits were taken by surprise, as it 
were. There was a touch of coquetry and a free- 
and-easy air, two qualities which are found together 
only in an artist’s quarters. Upon the beautifully 
carved wooden mantel-piece there was nothing but 
a curious Florentine statue of ivory, attributed to 
Michael-Angelo, representing an ourang-outang 
finding a woman in the dress of a young shepherd, 
the original of which is in the Treasury at Vienna; 
on each side were torch-holders carved by some 
chisel of the Renaissance. A Boule clock, upon a 
tortoise-shell pedestal incrusted with arabesques of 
copper, glistened in the centre of a panel, between 
two statuettes escaped from some dismantled abbey. 
In the corners, lamps of regal magnificence burned 
upon their pedestals; with them some manufacturer 
had paid for a few sonorous commonplaces as to 


the necessity of having lamps perfectly fitted to 
18 


274 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


Japanese vases. Upon a marvelous éfagere was 
paraded a valuable service of plate doughtily won in 
battle where some English lord had acknowledged 
the ascendancy of the French nation; there too, were 
porcelain ornaments with raised figures; in fine, the 
exquisite luxury of the artist who has no other cap- 
ital than her furniture. 

The violet chamber was like the dream of a bal- 
let-dancer at her début; velvet curtains lined with 
satin, draped over a misty veil of tulle; ceiling of 
white cashmere with raised figures in violet satin; 
at the foot of the bed a rug of ermine; in the bed, 
whose curtains were like a lily turned upside down, 
was a lantern by which to read the newspapers 
before the public saw them. A yellow salon, em- 
bellished with ornaments of the color of Florentine 
bronze, was in perfect harmony with all this 
splendor; but an exact description would make these 
pages resemble the announcement of a sale by 
judicial decree. To find the like of all these lovely 
things one must have gone a few steps away, to 
Rothschild’s. 

Sophie Grignoult, christened Florine by a process 
of baptism not unusual on the stage, made her first 
appearances at second-rate theatres, notwithstand- 
ing her beauty. Her success and her fortune she 
owed to Raoul Nathan. The close association of 
these two destinies, which is not of rare occurrence in 
the dramatic and literary world, in no way injured 
Raoul, who observed the proprieties like a man of 
excellent judgment. But there was no stability to 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 275 


Florine’s fortune. Her uncertain income depended 
upon her engagements and her vacations, and barely 
paid for her clothes and her housekeeping. Nathan 
contributed some small sums levied upon new in- 
dustrial enterprises; but, although he was always 
gallant to her and took care of her, there was noth- 
ing regular or certain about his patronage. This 
uncertainty, this life in the air, did not terrify Flo- 
rine. Florine believed in her talent, she believed 
in her beauty. Her robust faith had something 
comical in it to those who heard her mortgage her 
future thereon when they ventured to remonstrate 
with her. 

“*I shall have rentes when it suits my pleasure to 
have them,’’ she would say. ‘‘I have fifty francs 
in the funds already.’’ 

No one understood how she could have been 
neglected for seven years, lovely as she was; but 
the fact is that Florine was enrolled as a super- 
numerary at thirteen, and made her début at an ob- 
scure theatre on the boulevards two years later. At 
fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exists; a woman is 
all promise. At the time of which we are writing 
she was twenty-eight, the age at which a French 
woman’s beauty is at its height. What painters 
noticed first of all about Florine was a pair of glossy 
shoulders, with an olive tinge about the base of the 
neck, but hard and smooth; the light was reflected 
in them as in watered silk. When she turned her 
head, magnificent folds, the admiration of sculptors, 
were formed in her neck. Upon that magnificent 


276 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


neck was perched the little head of a Roman empress, 
the well-poised, graceful, delicate, wilful head of 
Poppza, intelligent, regular features, the smooth 
brow of the unreflecting woman who banishes care, 
but who can also be as obstinate as a mule and at 
such times will listen to nothing. This brow of 
hers, which seemed to have been fashioned with a 
single blow of the chisel, displayed to the best ad- 
vantage her lovely chestnut hair which was almost 
always raised in front in two masses of equal 
height, 2 Ja Romaine, and arranged in a knot behind 
the head to give the head an appearance of greater 
length, and to relieve the whiteness of the neck by 
its color. Delicate black eyebrows, drawn by some 
Chinese painter, framed a pair of soft eyes with a 
network of pink blood vessels. Her pupils, blazing 
with vivid light, but marked with brown stripes like 
a tiger’s skin, gave to her glance the cruel fixity of 
a wild beast’s, and revealed the cool cunning of the 
courtesan. Her adorable gazelle-like eyes were of 
a beautiful gray, fringed with long black lashes, a 
charming contrast which made still more apparent 
their expression of watchful, calm licentiousness ; 
there were black rings that told of weariness; but 
the artistic way in which she could roll the pupil 
into the corner or to the top of her eye, to watch or 
to assume an air of meditation, her manner of keep- 
ing it perfectly still and causing it to gleam its 
brightest without moving her head or disturbing the 
immobility of her countenance—a trick learned on 
the stage—and the animation of her gaze when it 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 277 


seemed to embrace a whole great hall as she looked 
about in search of some person, made hers the most 
terrible, the softest and the most extraordinary eyes 
in the world. Rouge had destroyed the delicious, 
transparent coloring of her cheeks, whose flesh was 
very delicate; but, if she could no longer blush or 
turn pale, she had a slender nose, intersected by 
passionate pink nostrils, made expressly to express 
the irony and the mockery of Moliére’s servants. 
Her sensual, dissipated mouth was embellished by 
the ridges of the furrow that attached the upper lip 
to the nose. Her white chin, somewhat coarse in 
outline, indicated the violence of her passions. Her 
hands and arms were worthy of a queen. But she 
had the short, thick foot which is an indelible sign 
of obscure birth. Never did inheritance cause more 
anxiety. Florine had tried everything, except am- 
putation, to change it. Her feet were as obstinate 
as the Bretons to whom she owed her birth; they 
resisted all the professors, all varieties of treatment. 
She wore long shoes stuffed with cotton inside to 
make it appear that she had a curving instep. She 
was of medium height, threatened with obesity, but 
erect and well-made. 

Morally speaking, she was thoroughly at home in 
all the pretty tricks and petty quarrels, the condi- 
ments and sweetmeats of her trade; she imparted a 
particularly delicious flavor to them when she 
played the child and interjected bits of mischievous 
philosophy in the midst of her innocent laughter. 
Apparently ignorant and frivolous, she was very 


278 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


strong in figures and in all the details of commercial 
jurisprudence. She had gone through so much 
misery before the dawning of her precarious success! 
She knew life in all its forms, from that which be- 
gins with Brie cheese to that which toys disdain- 
fully with pineapple fritters; from that which 
cooks and washes in the chimney-corner of an attic 
with a clay oven to that which convokes the ban 
and arriere-ban of pot-bellied chefs and impudent 
scullions. She had kept her credit in repair with- 
out killing it. She knew all about the things that 
honest women know nothing of, she spoke all lan- 
guages; she was of the common people by virtue of 
her experience, and noble by virtue of her distin- 
guished beauty. It was difficult to take her by sur- 
prise, for she always imagined everything, as a spy 
does, or a judge, or an old statesman, and thus was 
able to see into everything. She knew what 
method to adopt with tradespeople and their wiles, 
she knew the value of things as well as a profes- 
sional appraiser. When she was stretched out in 
her long chair, like a fair and blooming young bride, 
holding her lines in her hand and committing them 
to memory, you would have said she was a child of 
sixteen, artless and ignorant and weak, without 
other artifice than her innocence. But let an impor- 
tunate creditor appear, she would sit up like a 
startled fawn and swear a good round oath. 

‘‘Look here, my dear man! your impertinence is 
a high rate of interest to pay for the money I owe 
you,”? she would say; “‘Il’m tired of seeing you; 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 279 


send me some bailiffs, | prefer them to your idiotic 
face;”’ 

Florine gave delightful dinners, concerts, and very 
popular evening parties, where the gambling was 
fast and furious. Her friends of her own sex were 
all beautiful. No old woman was ever seen under 
her roof; she was an entire stranger to jealousy and 
looked upon it as an admission of inferiority. She 
had known Coralie and La Torpille, she knew the 
Tullias, Euphrasie, the Aquilinas, Madame du Val- 
Noble, Mariette,—the women who pass through 
Paris like the white threads that float about in the 
air, nor does anyone know whence they come nor 
whither they go—queens to-day, slaves to-morrow; 
and the actresses too, her rivals, and the singers, in 
short, all the unconventional female society, good- 
humored, and attractive in its recklessness, whose 
Bohemian existence absorbs all those who allow 
themselves to be drawn into the mad whirl of its 
impetuosity and fervor and its contempt for the 
future. Although the Bohemian mode of life with 
all its lack of order held sway in her house, en- 
couraged by the cheery laughter of the actress, the 
queen of the salon had ten fingers of her own and 
knew how to count better than any of her guests. 
There, were held the secret saturnalia of literature 
and art combined with politics and finance. There 
desire reigned supreme; there, spleen and caprice 
were held as sacred as honor and virtue in a bour- 
geois household. Thither came Blondet, Finot, 
Etienne Lousteau, her seventh lover and supposed 


280 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


to be the first, Félicien Vernou, the newspaper 
writer, Couture, Bixiou, Rastignac at an earlier 
period, Claude Vignon the critic, Nucingen the 
banker, Du Tillet, Conti the composer, in brief, 
the whole devil-ridden legion of the most pitiless 
schemers of every sort; then there were the friends 
of the singers, dancers and actresses whom Florine 
knew. All these people loved or hated one another 
according to circumstances. This house of common 
resort, where celebrity in some direction was suffi- 
cient to entitle any one to admission, was, as it 
were, the brothel of wit, the galleys of intelligence; 
no one could enter there who had not stolen his for- 
tune by legal means, or lived through ten years of 
poverty, or slaughtered two or three passions, or 
acquired celebrity of some sort by his books or his 
waistcoats, by a drama or a handsome turnout. 
Base plots were hatched there and ways of making 
money eagerly sought; they laughed at the émeutes 
they had fomented the day before, and weighed 
the chances of a rise or fall in the funds. Every 
man, on leaving the house, resumed the livery of 
his opinions; but there he could, without compro- 
mising himself, criticize his own party, admit the 
science and skilful play of his opponents, formulate 
thoughts which no one avows—say anything, in 
short, with the air of a man who could do anything, 
Paris is the only place in the world where such 
eclectic houses as this exist, houses where every 
taste, every vice, every opinion is made welcome 
with an appearance of decency. It cannot be said 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 281 


either, that Florine is still a second-rate actress. 
Her life is not an idle life or to be envied. Many 
people, misled by the magnificent pedestal upon 
which the stage places a woman, fancy that her life 
is aS joyous as a perpetual carnival. In many a 
porter’s lodge, under the eaves of more than one 
attic, poor creatures, returning from the play, dream 
of pearls and diamonds, of dresses covered with gold 
and gorgeous stomachers; they seem to see them- 
selves with jewels shining in their hair, they fancy 
themselves applauded, purchased, worshiped, re- 
moved from their surroundings; but they know 
nothing of the realities of this life of a riding-school 
horse, in which the actress is required to attend 
rehearsals under penalty of a fine, to listen to the 
reading of plays, and constantly to study new parts, 
at a time when two or three hundred plays a year 
are produced in Paris. Florine has to change her 
costume two or three times during every perform- 
ance, and is often completely exhausted, half-dead, 
when she returns to her dressing-room. Then she 
is obliged to remove the red or white paint by pro- 
fuse applications of cosmetic, and to wash off the 
powder if she has been playing an eighteenth-cen- 
tury part. She has hardly had time to dine. 
When she is playing, an actress can neither dress, 
nor eat, nor speak. Florine no longer has time for 
supper-parties. When she returns home after one 
of the performances which, in these days of ours, 
end the next day, has not she to make her toilette 
for the night and to give her orders for the morrow ? 


282 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


After going to bed at one or two o’clock in the 
morning, she must rise sufficiently early to look over 
her lines, select her costumes, explain them and try 
them on; then breakfast, read her billets-doux, 
answer them, labor with the contractors for applause, 
to be sure that her entrées and exits are properly 
looked after, and pay for the triumphs of the past 
month while purchasing in bulk those of the month 
now current. In the time of Saint-Genest a canon- 
ized actor, who fulfilled his religious duties and 
wore a hair-shirt, it is fair to suppose that the stage 
did not demand such ferocious activity. Florine is 
often obliged to say she is sick in order to be able 
to go into the country, bourgeois fashion, to pick 
wild flowers. But these purely mechanical occupa- 
tions are nothing at all in comparison with the 
scheming to be carried on, the mortifications of 
wounded vanity, the preferences accorded by 
authors, rdles taken away or forced upon one, the 
exacting demands of actors, the malice of a rival, 
the fusillade of managers and newspaper critics who 
demand that two days’ work be done in one. Hith- 
erto there has been no thought of art, of the expres- 
sion of the passions, of the details of the mimic art, 
of the essential requirements of the stage, where 
the blemishes that mar every manifestation of 
splendor are revealed by thousands of opera-glasses, 
—requirements that Talma, Lekain, Baron, Contat, 
Clairon, Champmeslé devoted their thoughts and 
their lives to satisfying. In those infernal wings, 
self-esteem has no sex; the triumphant artist, 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 283 


man or woman, finds men and women against 
him. 

As regards fortune, though Florine could command 
a reasonably large salary, it did not cover the cost 
of her stage toilette, which, to say nothing of cos- 
tumes, required an enormous supply of shoes and 
long gloves, and included both evening dresses and 
street dresses. One-third of an actress’s life is 
passed in begging, another in maintaining herself, 
and the last in defending herself: it is all work. If 
happiness is enjoyed with great gusto when it comes 
to such lives, it is because it is stolen, as it were, 
rarely attained, long hoped for, and found at last by 
chance amid hateful counterfeited pleasures and 
smiles at the pit. 

To Florine, Raoul’s power was like a protecting 
sceptre: he spared her much ennui and much 
anxiety, as the great nobles did for their mistresses 
in the old days, and like some old men to-day, who 
run and throw themselves at the feet of the critics 
when a word in some petty newspaper has alarmed 
their idol. She clung to him more than to a lover, 
she clung to him as to a pillar of strength, she cared 
for him as if he were her father, she deceived him 
as if he were her husband; but she would have sac- 
rificed all for him. Raoul could do everything for 
her vanity as an actress, for the tranquillity of her 
self-esteem, for her future on the stage. Without 
the intervention of a great author, no great actress; 
we owed Champmeslé to Racine, as we owed Mars 
to Monvel and Andrieux. Florine could do nothing 


284 A DAUGHTER OF EVE © 


for Raoul, but she would have been very glad to be 
useful or necessary to him. She relied upon the 
allurements of habit, she was always ready to open 
her salons, to display all her magnificence for his 
friends or in aid of his projects. In short, she 
aspired to be to him what Madame de Pompa- 
dour was to Louis XV. Other actresses envied 
Florine’s position just as certain newspaper men 
envied Raoul’s. 

Now, those who have observed the inclination of 
the human mind toward contrasts and contraries, 
will understand how it was that after ten years of 
this disorderly Bohemian existence, full of ups and 
downs, of feasts and executions for debt, of sobriety 
and orgies, Raoul was irresistibly attracted toward 
a pure, chaste passion, toward the peaceful and har- 
monious abode of a great lady, just as the Comtesse 
Félix longed to introduce the torments of passion 
into her life, which had become monotonous by vir- 
tue of its abounding happiness. This law of life is 
the law of all the arts, which exist only by con- 
trasts. A work accomplished without that resource 
is the supreme expression of genius, as the cloister 
is the greatest effort of the Christian. 


* 


Upon returning home, Raoul found a short note 
from Florine, brought by her maid, but an uncon- 
querable desire to sleep prevented him from read- 
ing it; he sought his couch, filled with delicious 
thoughts of the fresh, sweet love that was lacking 
in his life. Some hours later he read in that note 
important news which neither De Marsay nor Ras- 
tignac had divulged. The actress had learned 
from an indiscreet remark that the Chamber was to 
be dissolved after the session. 

Raoul went at once to Florine’s and sent for 
Blondet. In the actress’s boudoir, Raoul and Emile, 
with their feet on the andirons, analyzed the politi- 
cal situation in France in 1834. On which side 
was the best opportunity for making one’s fortune? 
They passed in review the pure republicans, the 
republicans who would have a president, the repub- 
licans without a republic, the constitutionals with- 
out a dynasty, the constitutionals with a dynasty, 
ministerial conservatives, ministerial absolutists; 
from these they passed to the Right favoring con- 
cessions, the aristocratic Right, the legitimist, Henri 
V. Right, the Carlist Right. As between the party 
of resistance and the party of progress, it was im- 
possible to hesitate: it would have been as sensible 
to discuss the respective merits of life and death. 

(285) 


286 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


At this time, a multitude of newspapers, estab- 
lished to suit every possible shade of opinion, were 
crying out against the horrible political hurly-burly, 
called gachis—mess—by a soldier. Blondet, the most 
judicious mind of the age, but judicious in the inter- 
ests of others always, never in his own, like those 
advocates who manage their own business badly, 
was sublime in such private discussions as this. 
He advised Nathan not to change sides abruptly. 

‘*Napoléon said that young republics aren’t made 
with old monarchies. So, my dear fellow, become 
the hero, the mainstay, the creator of the Left Cen- 
tre in the Chamber that is to be, and you’ll get 
ahead in politics. Once admitted, once in the gov- 
ernment, you are whatever you choose to be, you 
hold every opinion that prevails!’’ 

Nathan decided to found a daily newspaper de- 
voted to politics, to be the absolute master of it, to 
attach to it one of the small newspapers in which 
the press abounds, and to establish connections with 
areview. The press had been the means of mak- 
ing so many fortunes among his acquaintances that 
he paid no heed to the advice Blondet gave him, not 
to trust to it. Blondet declared that it was a 
wretched speculation, the number of newspapers 
fighting for subscribers at that time was so great, 
and the press seemed to him to be such a worn out 
weapon. Raoul, relying upon his pretended friend- 
ships and his courage, rushed boldly into the 
scheme; he rose to his feet with a burst of pride 
and said: 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 287 


“*1 shall succeed !’’ 

**You haven’t a sou!’’ 

“Til write a drama!’ 

“It will fail.”’ 

‘‘Very good, it shall fail,’’ said Nathan. 

He made the circuit of Florine’s apartment, fol- 
lowed by Blondet, who believed him mad; then he 
glanced with a covetous eye at the wealth that was 
piled up there; Blondet understood him. 

“‘There’s a hundred thousand francs and more 
here,’’ said he. 

“*Yes,’’ said Raoul sighing, as he stood by Florine’s 
sumptuous bed; ‘‘but I would prefer to pass the rest 
of my life peddling knickknacks on the boulevards 
and live on fried potatoes, than sell a single cup out 
of this room.”’ 

‘Not a cup,’’ said Blondet, ‘‘but everything! 
Ambition is like death, it must lay its hand on every- 
thing, for it knows that life is close at its heels.’’ 

*‘No! a hundred times no! I would accept any- 
thing from my countess of yesterday, but to steal 
Florine’s shell ?”’ 

**Pull down her mint,’’ said Blondet with a tragic 
air, ‘“smash the dies and stamps—that’s a serious 
matter.’’ 

‘As far as I can understand, you propose to go 
into politics instead of sticking to the theatre,’’ 
said Florine, suddenly making her appearance. 

“*Yes, my girl, yes,’’ said Raoul good-humoredly, 
putting his arm around her neck and kissing her on 
the forehead. ‘‘What! you pout? Shall you lose 


288 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


anything by it? won’t the minister be better able 
than the journalist to get the queen of the boards a 
good engagement? Won’t you have plenty of parts 
and plenty of vacations ?”’ 

‘‘Where’ll you get the money ?”’ said she. 

““At my uncle’s,’’ Raoul replied. 

Florine knew Raoul’s uncle. That word symbol- 
ized the usurer, as aunt, in vulgar parlance, signifies 
pawnbroker. 

“Don’t you disturb yourself, my little jewel,’’ 
said Blondet, tapping Florine on the shoulder, ‘‘I’ll 
get Massol to help him, an advocate who, like all 
advocates, wants to be keeper of the seals for a day, 
Du Tillet, who wants to be a deputy, Finot, who is 
still at the helm of a small newspaper, and Plantin, 
who wants to be master of requests and is dabbling 
inareview. Yes, I will save him from himself; 
we’ll have Etienne Lousteau here and get him to 
write the literary article, and Claude Vignon for 
critic; Félicien Vernou will be the managing woman 
of the paper, the advocate will work, Du Tillet will 
look after the Bourse and business matters, and 
we’ll see where all these strong wills and all these 
slaves united will bring us.’’ 

‘*To the insane asylum or the ministry, where all 
those who are ruined in body or mind bring up,’’ 
said Raoul. 

‘*When will you settle matters with them ?”’ 

‘*‘Here,’’ said Raoul, ‘‘five days hence.’’ 

‘You must tell me what amount of money you 
will need,’’ said Florine simply. 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 289 


‘‘Why, the advocate and Du Tillet and Raoul 
can’t go into the thing without a hundred thousand 
francs each,’’ said Blondet. ‘‘The paper will go on 
then for eighteen months, the time it takes a man 
to rise or fall here in Paris.’’ 

Florine gave a little nod of approbation. The 
two friends took a cab to kidnap associates, pens, 
brains and interests. The fair actress meanwhile 
sent for four wealthy dealers in furniture, curiosi- 
ties, pictures and jewels. These men entered the 
sanctuary and inventoried everything therein con- 
tained, as if Florine were dead. She threatened 
them with a sale at public auction in case they 
should do violence to their consciences in expecta- 
tion of a better opportunity. She had made an im- 
pression, she told them, upon an English nobleman 
by her acting in a play of the Middle Ages, and 
wanted to get rid of all her movable wealth in order 
to make him think she was poor and induce him to 
give her a magnificent house which she would fur- 
nish in a way to rival Rothschild. But in spite of 
all she could do to inveigle them, they would give 
her only seventy thousand francs for the whole lot, 
which was worth a hundred and fifty thousand. 
Florine, who would not have given two sous for it, 
agreed to deliver it all in a week’s time for eighty 
thousand. 

‘You can take it or leave it,’’ said she. 

The bargain was concluded. When the trades- 
men had decamped, Florine leaped for joy like the 
little hills of King David. She cut a thousand 

19 


290 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


capers, for she had no idea she was so rich. When 
Raoul returned, she pretended to be angry with him. 
She said that she had thought it over, and that he 
had deserted her; men didn’t go from one party to 
another, nor from the stage to the Chamber without 
a motive; she had a rival! How unerring is in- 
stinct! She made him swear eternal love to her. 
Five days later, she gave the most splendid ban- 
quet imaginable. The new journal was baptized 
under her roof in oceans of wine and jests, of oaths 
of fidelity, of good-fellowship and serious co-ope- 
ration. The name, forgotten to-day as are the 
Libéral, the Communal, the Departemental, the 
Garde National, the Féderal, the Impartial, was 
something ending in a/, which was destined to be 
very ephemeral. 

After the numerous descriptions of orgies which 
marked this literary era—so few of which took 
place in the attics where they were written—it is a 
difficult matter to describe this one of Florine’s. A 
single word only. At three o’clock in the morning, 
Florine was able to undress and go to bed as if she 
were alone, although no one had gone away. All 
these lights of the age were sleeping like beasts. 
When the packers and porters and draymen arrived, 
early in the morning, to remove all the famous 
actress’s magnificence, she laughed heartily as she 
saw them lift up these celebrities like heavy pieces 
of furniture and deposit them on the floor. Thus all 
the lovely things vanished. Florine banished all 
her souvenirs to the warerooms, where no passer-by 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 291 


could tell from their appearance where or how those 
flowers of luxury had been paid for. By agreement, 
certain specified things were left with Florine until 
evening; her bed, and her table and crockery, so that 
she could give her guests their breakfast. Having 
fallen asleep under the luxurious canopy of wealth 
the famous wits awoke surrounded by the cold, dis- 
mantled walls of poverty, covered with the marks 
of nails and disfigured by the odd, incongruous 
things that collect behind hangings like the ropes 
and cords behind the decorations at the opera. 

‘Why, Florine, the poor girl’s had an execution 
in here!’’ cried Bixiou, one of the revellers. 
‘‘Hands in your pockets! a subscription!’’ 

As he spoke, the whole party leaped to their feet. 
All their pockets turned inside out produced thirty- 
seven francs, which Raoul jocosely handed to the 
smiling hostess. The happy courtesan raised her 
head from her pillow, and pointed to the coverlid 
where there was a pile of banknotes, as thickas in 
the days when a courtesan’s pillow was worth as 
much a year, good years and bad. 

Raoul called Blondet. 

“‘1 understand,’’ said the latter. ‘‘The rascal 
levied on herself without saying a word. Well 
done, my little angel!’’ 

This exploit caused the actress to be carried in 
triumph, en déshabillé as she was, to the dining- 
room by the few friends who remained. The advo- 
cate and the bankers had taken their leave. That 
evening, Florine had a dazzling triumph at the 


292 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


theatre. The story of her sacrifice had spread 
through the hall. 

‘*1 should rather be applauded for my talent,’’ her 
rival said to her in the green-room. 

“‘That’s a very natural desire for an artist who 
has never been applauded as yet for anything but 
her good-nature,’’ she retorted. 

During the evening, Florine’s maid had moved 
her belongings to Raoul’s apartment on Passage 
Sandrié. The journalist was to take up his quar- 
ters in the house where the offices of the newspaper 
had been opened. 


* 


Such was the rival of the chaste and pure Madame 
de Vandenesse. Raoul’s caprice bound the actress 
and the countess together as with a ring: a ghastly 
bond which a duchess severed, in the days of Louis 
XV., by causing Adrienne Lecouvreur to be 
poisoned,—a sweet revenge easily understood when 
one considers the enormity of the offence. 

Florine did not interfere with the early stages of 
Raoul’s passion. She anticipated financial compli- 
cations in the difficult undertaking on which he had 
embarked, and applied for a furlough of six months. 
Raoul conducted the negotiation for her with great 
ardor and achieved success in a way to make him 
still dearer to Florine. With the good sense of the 
peasant in La Fontaine’s fable, who makes sure of 
his dinner while his betters are thinking about it, 
the actress went into the provinces and abroad to 
secure the ducats, in order to support the famous 
man while he was on the hunt for power. 

Hitherto but few painters have attacked the sub- 
ject of love as it exists in the more exalted social 
spheres, abounding in grandeur and secret misery, 
terrible in its desires defeated by the most absurd, 
most commmonplace accidents, and often ship- 
wrecked by weariness. Perhaps we may catch a 
few glimpses of it here. 

On the day following Lady Dudley’s ball, 

(293) 


204 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


although not a word in the nature of the most timid 
declaration had been spoken on either side, Marie 
believed that Raoul loved her, according to the 
tenor of her dreams, and Raoul knew that Marie had 
chosen him for her lover. Although neither of them 
had arrived at that advanced stage at which men 
and women alike cut short the preliminaries, they 
were both making rapid progress toward the goal. 
Raoul, surfeited with pleasure, was bound for an 
ideal world; while Marie, who was as far removed 
as possible from the thought of sinning, did not 
dream that she could leave that world behind her. 
Thus there never was a passion more innocent and 
purer, in fact, than the love of Raoul and Marie; 
nor was there ever one more ardent or more delight- 
ful in anticipation. The countess’s mind was filled 
with ideas suited to the days of chivalry, but com- 
pletely modernized. In the spirit of her réle, her 
husband’s antipathy for Nathan ceased to be an 
obstacle to her love. The less deserving of esteem 
Raoul had proved to be, the grander she would 
have been. The poet’s perfervid conversation had 
wakened more of an echo in her breast than in her 
heart. Charity was aroused by the voice of desire. 
That queen of all the virtues almost justified in the 
countess’s eyes the emotions, the joys, the violent 
impulses of love. She thought it was a glorious 
thing to be a sort of human Providence to Raoul. 
What a sweet thought! to sustain with her feeble 
white hand this colossus whose feet of clay she 
would not see, to supply life where it was lacking, 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 295 


to be in secret the creatress of a great fortune, to 
assist a man of genius to contend with fate and 
overcome it, to embroider his scarf for the joust, to 
furnish him with weapons, to give him an amulet 
against sorcery, and a healing balm for his wounds! 

In the case of a woman educated as Marie had 
been, and devout and noble-souled as she was, love 
was certain to take the shape of a sort of voluptuous 
charity. Herein lies the explanation of her for- 
wardness. Virtuous sentiments compromise them- 
selves with superb disdain not unlike the shame- 
lessness of a courtesan. As soon, therefore, as she 
had satisfied herself, by specious sophistry, that she 
was not violating her conjugal faith, the countess 
plunged heart and soul into the pleasure of loving 
Raoul. Thereupon the most trivial incidents of life 
acquired a charm for her. Her boudoir, where she 
sat and thought of him, she transformed into a sanc- 
tuary. There was nothing there, even to her dainty 
writing-desk, that did not awaken in her heart the 
thousand and one delights of such a connection; she 
would have letters to read and hide and answer. 
The toilette, the sublime poetry of a woman’s life, 
whose charm had worn off or was unappreciated by 
her, reappeared, endowed with a magic power hith- 
erto unsuspected. Her toilette suddenly became to 
her what it is to all women, a constant manifestation 
of her inmost thoughts, a language, a symbol. How 
much pleasure may be derived from a costume 
designed to please him, to do him honor! She devoted 
her attention most innocently to the fascinating 


206 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


little artifices which occupy so large a part of the 
lives of Parisian women and which give ample 
meaning to everything you see at their homes or 
upon their persons. 

Very few women run about to silk merchants and 
milliners and fashionable dressmakers in their own 
interest alone. When they are old they no longer 
think of their dress. When you see, as you walk 
along the street, a female figure stopping for a 
moment in front of a show-window, look carefully 
at her: ‘Would he like me better in that?’ isa 
phrase writ large upon her cheerful face, in her 
eyes glistening with hope, in the smile that plays 
about her lips. 

Lady Dudley’s ball took place on a Saturday 
evening; on Monday the countess went to the 
opera, drawn thither by the certainty that she 
should see Raoul there. And there he was, planted 
on one of the staircases leading to the amphitheatre 
stalls. He lowered his eyes when the countess 
entered her box. With what bliss did Madame de 
Vandenesse take note of the unwonted care her lover 
had bestowed upon his toilette! That scoffer at the 
laws of fashion exhibited a well-combed head of 
hair with perfumed oil glistening in the curves of 
the myriad curls; his waistcoat conformed to the 
prevailing style, his cravat was securely tied, the 
folds of his shirt were irreproachably clean and 
smooth. His hands seemed very white beneath the 
yellow gloves he wore in obedience to the decree 
then in force. His arms were folded across his 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 207 


chest as if he were posing for his portrait, superbly 
indifferent to the whole great audience, but bursting 
with ill-restrained impatience. His eyes, although 
cast down, seemed to be turned toward the red vel- 
vet box-rail on which Marie’s arm rested. Félix, 
seated in the other corner of the box, had his back 
turned to Nathan. The clever countess had seated 
herself so that she could fix her eyes upon the pillar 
against which Raoul was leaning. And so, all ina 
moment, Marie had caused this man of brains to 
abjure his cynicism in the matter of clothing. The 
most humble as well as the most exalted of women 
is deeply moved to see the first manifestation of 
her power in such a metamorphosis as this. Every 
change is a confession of subjection. 

“‘They were right, there is much happiness in 
being understood,’’ she said to herself as she thought 
of her hateful mentors. 

When the two lovers had taken in the whole 
hall with the swift glance that sees everything, 
they exchanged a look of intelligence. It was to 
both as if the dew from heaven had fallen in a 
refreshing shower upon their hearts, parched by 
long waiting. ‘‘I have been here for an hour in 
hell and now the gates of heaven are opening,”’ 
said Raoul’s eyes.—‘*‘I knew you were here, but 
am I my own mistress?’ the countess’s eyes 
replied. 

Thieves, spies, lovers, diplomats, slaves of all 
kinds in short, but no others, know the resources 
and the delights of the glance. They alone know 


298 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


all the possibilities in the way of tenderness, mutual 
understanding, wrath and malice contained in the 
modifications of that soul-laden ray of light. 

Raoul felt his passion wince under the spur of 
necessity, but wax great at the sight of the obstacles 
in its path. Between the step on which he stood 
and the box of the Comtesse Félix de Vandenesse, 
the distance was scarcely thirty feet, but it was 
impossible for him to ignore that distance. In the 
breast of a man of fierce passions, who hitherto had 
found but a brief interval between a desire and its 
gratification, that stern and impassable abyss 
aroused a fierce longing to leap with a tiger’s spring 
to where the countess sat. Ina paroxysm of rage, 
he tried to feel the ground. He bowed openly to 
the countess, who responded with one of those slight, 
disdainful movements of the head, with which 
women put an end to any inclination their adorers 
may have to begin again. 

Comte Félix turned to see who had attracted his 
wife’s attention; he saw Nathan, did not bow to 
him, but seemed rather to call him to account for 
his audacity, and turned slowly around again, say- 
ing a few words evidently in approbation of his 
wife’s feigned contempt. It was clear that the door 
of the box was closed to Nathan, who darted a 
threatening glance at Félix. Anyone who saw this 
glance, would have interpreted it by repeating a 
remark of Florine’s: ‘‘Before long you won’t be 
able to put your hat on!’’ 

Madame d’Espard, one of the most impertinent 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 299 


women of her day, had seen the whole episode from 
her box; she raised her voice, exclaiming ‘‘bravo!”’ 
without any special occasion therefor. Raoul, who 
stood below her, at last turned his head; he bowed 
to her and received in return a gracious smile which 
said to him so plainly: ‘‘If they shut you out 
there, come here!’’ that he left his pillar and paid a 
visit to Madame d’Espard. It was well for him to 
show himself there in order to teach that wretched 
little Monsieur de Vandenesse that celebrity was of 
equal value with noble blood, and that all emblazoned 
doors turned upon their hinges when Nathan 
knocked at them. The marchioness forced him to 
sit facing her at the front of the box. She proposed 
to put him to the question. 

‘‘Madame Félix de Vandenesse is enchanting this 
evening,’’ she said, complimenting him upon her 
toilette as she might have complimented him upon a 
book he had published the day before. 

**Yes,’’? said Raoul carelessly, ‘‘the marabou 
feathers are wonderfully becoming; but she’s very 
faithful to them, she wore them night before last,”’ 
he added with a nonchalant air, as if to repudiate 
by this criticism the sweet complicity of which the 
marchioness accused him. 

‘*You know the proverb?’’ she replied. ‘‘Every 
pleasure has its to-morrow.”’ 

At the game of repartee, literary celebrities are 
not always as strong as marchionesses. Raoul 
adopted the course of pretending to misunderstand, 
the last resource of men of wit. 


300 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


‘“‘The proverb is true in my case,’’ he said, 
glancing at the marchioness with a gallant air. 

‘‘My dear boy, your declaration comes too late 
for me to accept it,’’ she said, laughingly. ‘‘Come, 
come, don’t be such a prude; you thought Madame 
de Vandenesse was lovely in marabou feathers at 
the ball yesterday morning; she knows it, so she 
wears them again for your benefit. She loves you 
and you adore her; it’s a little sudden, but I don’t 
see why it’s not perfectly natural. If 1 were mis- 
taken you wouldn’t be twisting one of your gloves 
about like a man who’s half crazy because he’s sit- 
ting by my side instead of being in his idol’s box, 
—from which he’s just been turned away by a 
formal expression of scorn,—and listening to me say 
in a whisper what he’d like to hear said aloud.’’ 

Raoul was, in fact, twisting one of his gloves and 
exhibiting an astonishingly white hand. 

‘*She has induced you,’’ she said, staring at his 
hand in the most impertinent way, ‘‘to make sacri- 
fices that you never made to society at large. She 
ought to be enchanted with her success; no doubt 
she will be a little proud of it; but if I were in her 
place I might be even more so. She was nothing 
but a bright woman, and now she’s going to be held 
up as a woman of genius. You’re going to paint 
her for us in one of the charming books you know 
so well how to write. My dear, don’t forget Van- 
denesse,—do it for me. Upon my word, he’s too 
sure of himself. I wouldn’t put on that radiant ex- 
pression for the Olympian Jupiter, the only one of 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 301 


the heathen gods who was exempt from accident, 
they say.’”’ 

‘*Madame,”’ cried Raoul, ‘‘you give me credit for 
a very base heart, if you deem me capable of mak- 
ing a business matter of my feelings or my love. | 
should prefer to such literary baseness as that, the 
English custom of putting a rope around a woman’s 
neck and leading her to market.’’ 

“‘But I know Marie—she’ll ask you to do it.’’ 

“*She’s incapable of it,’’ said Raoul hotly. 

‘*Do you know her so well, pray ?”’ 

Nathan began to laugh at himself, he a deviser of 
scenes, for allowing himself to be caught by a stage 
trick. 

“‘The comedy’s being played here in your box, 
and not there,’’ he said, pointing to the footlights. 

He took her opera-glass and began to survey the 
audience to keep himself in countenance. 

‘*Are you angry with me?’’ said the marchioness, 
looking at him out of the corner of her eye. 
‘*Shouldn’t I have known your secret all the same? 
We shall easily be reconciled. Come and see me; 
I receive on Wednesdays; the dear countess won’t 
miss an evening as soon as she finds you are likely 
to be there. I shall be the gainer by it. Some- 
times I see her between four and five o’clock, and 
1’ll be a good girl and add you to the small number 
of particular friends I admit at that hour.”’’ 

‘“Well, well,’’ said Raoul, ‘‘what people there are 
in the world! they told me you were a wicked crea- 
ture.’’ 


302 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


‘“Wicked!’’ said she, ‘‘so I am when there’s occa- 
sion for it. Mustn’t I defend myself? But as to 
your countess, I adore her; you will be satisfied 
with her, for she is charming. You will be the first 
man whose name has been engraved on her heart 
with the childish joy that leads all lovers, even cor- 
porals, to carve their ciphers on the bark of trees. 
A woman’s first love is a delicious fruit. Later on, 
you see, there’s a touch of science in our affections 
and our coquetry. An old woman like me can say 
whatever she pleases, for she’s afraid of nothing, 
not even a journalist. In the autumn of life we 
know how to make you happy; but when we begin 
to love, we are happy ourselves, and thus we flatter 
your pride in a thousand ways. At such times, 
everything is unexpected and enchanting, for our 
hearts are overflowing with artlessness. You are 
too much of a poet not to prefer the flower to the 
fruit. 1’ll expect you six months from now.”’ 

Raoul, like all criminals, resorted to a system of 
denial; but he thereby furnished this bold fencer 
with additional weapons. Finding himself involved 
before long in the meshes of one of the cleverest 
and most dangerous of those private conversations 
in which Parisian women excel, he feared lest he 
might be surprised into making admissions which 
the marchioness would at once make the most of 
with her mocking tongue, he discreetly withdrew 
as Lady Dudley entered the box. 

‘‘Well,’’ said the Englishwoman to the marchion- 
ess, ‘‘how far along are they ?”’ 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 303 


‘*They are madly in love with each other. Nathan 
has just told me so.”’ 

“Tl would have liked to have him uglier than he 
is,’’? said Lady Dudley, casting a viperish glance at 
Félix. ‘‘Otherwise he’s just what I wanted: he’s 
the son of a Jew pawnbroker who died a bankrupt 
soon after his marriage; but his mother was a 
Catholic, and unfortunately she made a Christian 
of him.’’ 

These facts concerning his origin, which Nathan 
was at such pains to conceal, Lady Dudley had suc- 
ceeded in discovering, and she was enjoying in an- 
ticipation the pleasure it would afford her to extract 
therefrom some crushing epigram against Vande- 
nesse. 

“‘To think that I just now invited him to come 
to my house!’’ exclaimed the marchioness. 

**Didn’t I receive him yesterday ?”’ rejoined Lady 
Dudley. ‘‘There are pleasures which cost us very 
dear, my love.”’ 




















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* 


The news of the mutual passion of Raoul and 
Madame de Vandenesse was industriously circulated 
among the people of fashion during the evening, not 
without arousing incredulity and contradiction; but 
the countess was defended by her friends, Lady 
Dudley, Mesdames d’Espard and De Manerville, 
with ambiguous warmth well calculated to induce 
belief in the report. 

Impelled by necessity, Raoul went to Madame 
d’Espard’s on Wednesday evening, and met the 
aristocratic company usually to be found there. As 
Félix did not accompany his wife, Raoul was able 
to exchange a few words with Marie, words more 
expressive by reason of the tone in which they were 
uttered than of the ideas conveyed by them. The 
countess, warned by Madame Octave de Camps 
to be on her guard against evil tongues, realized her 
position in the eyes of the world and made Raoul 
realize it. 

Amid that gorgeous throng, the only pleasure en- 
joyed by either consisted in the sensations, so 
keenly relished at such times, that are aroused by 
the voice, the gestures, the attitudes, the ideas of a 
person who is dear to one. The heart grasps madly 
at trifles. Sometimes the eyes of both are fixed 
upon the same object, embodying therein, so to 
speak, a thought conceived, transmitted and under- 
stood. We remark with admiration the foot put 

20 (305) 


306 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


slightly forward during a conversation, the restless 
hand, the fingers busily occupied in taking up and 
putting down and toying with some knickknack ina 
significant way. Ideas no longer speak, nor words, 
but things; they say so much that a man in love 
often leaves it for others to bring a cup of tea or the 
sugar-bowl or the thousand and one things his be- 
loved may ask for, because he fears that he may 
reveal his confusion to eyes that seem to see noth- 
ing, but see everything. A thousand desires, wild 
wishes and passionate thoughts are compressed in 
a glance. The pressure of the hand, unseen by 
the thousand Argus eyes, acquires the eloquence of 
a long letter, the rapture of a kiss. Love grows on 
all that it denies itself, and leans upon every 
obstacle to renew its strength. And finally these 
obstacles, more often cursed than crossed, are cut 
down and cast into the fire to keep it alive. At 
such times, women can measure the extent of their 
power in the small dimensions to which a boundless 
passion is reduced, as it recoils upon itself, conceals 
itself in a thirsty glance, in a contraction of the 
nerves, behind a commonplace courteous phrase. 
How many times, upon the lowest step of a stair- 
case, is a man rewarded by a single word for all 
the unheard-of torture, the meaningless conversation 
of a whole evening! 

Raoul, a man who cared little for society, gave 
free rein to his wrath in his speech, and was ina 
fever of excitement. Everyone heard the roars in- 
spired by the restraint which artists find it so hard 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 307 


to endure. This frenzy, a la Roland, this wit that 
crushed and shattered everything, using epigram as 
a club, intoxicated Marie and entertained the com- 
pany as if they were watching the mad career of a 
bull, decked out with flags in a Spanish bull ring. 

“It’s of no use for you to knock everybody down, 
you won’t succeed in creating a solitude,’’ said 
Blondet. 

This hint restored Raoul’s presence of mind, and 
he ceased to make an exhibition of his vexation. 
The marchioness came and offered him a cup of 
tea, and said so that Madame de Vandenesse could 
hear: 

‘*Really you’re very amusing, pray come and see 
me some day at four o’clock.”’ 

Raoul took offence at the word amusing, although 
it was used as a pretext for the invitation. He be- 
gan to listen like those actors who stare about the 
theatre instead of keeping their thoughts on the 
stage. Blondet had compassion on him. 

“‘My dear fellow,’’ said he, taking him into a 
corner, ‘‘you act in society as if you were at Flo- 
rine’s. Here it isn’t the thing to lose your temper or 
make long speeches, but you should say a clever word 
or two now and then, assume a tranquil expression 
just when you feel the greatest desire to throw peo- 
ple out of the window, jest mildly, make a pretence 
of paying marked attention to the woman you adore, 
and not roll over on your back like a donkey 
in the middle of the road. Here, my dear fellow, 
we love according to rule. Either carry off Madame 


308 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


de Vandenesse, or act like a gentleman. You’re too 
much like the lover in one of your books.’’ 

Nathan hung his head as he listened; he was like 
a lion caught in the toils. 

“*I’ll never set my foot inside these doors again,”’ 
saidhe. ‘‘This papier-maché marchioness sells her 
tea too dear. She thinks me amusing! I under- 
stand now why Saint-Just guillotined all such 
people. ’’ | 

**You’ll come again to-morrow.”’ 

Blondet was a true prophet. The passions are as 
cowardly as they are cruel. The next day, after 
wavering a long while between: ‘‘I will go,’’ and 
‘I won’t go,’’ Raoul left his associates in the middle 
of an important discussion, and hurried to Madame 
d’Espard’s on Faubourg Saint-Honoré. When he 
saw Rastignac’s stylish cabriolet drive in as he was 
paying his cabman, his vanity was wounded; he 
determined to have a stylish cabriolet himself and 
the tiger to go with it. 

The countess’s carriage was in the courtyard. 
At that sight, Raoul’s heart swelled with delight. 
Marie was going forward under the impulsion of 
her desires like the hand of a clock kept in motion 
by its spring. She was stretched out in an easy 
chair at the corner of the fireplace in the small 
salon. Instead of looking up at Nathan when he 
was announced, she looked at him in the mirror, 
feeling sure that the mistress of the house would 
turn toward him. Love is hunted down so persist- 
ently in society that it is forced to resort to such 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 309 


little stratagems; it gives life to mirrors and muffs 
and fans, to a multitude of things whose utility is 
not at once demonstrated and which many women 
wear out without making use of them. 

‘‘Monsieur le Ministre,’’ said Madame d’Espard to 
Raoul, introducing De Marsay to him by a glance, 
‘‘was insisting, just as you came in, that the roy- 
alists and the republicans understand one another ; 
you ought to know something about it?’’ 

‘‘Suppose it should be so,’’ said Raoul, ‘‘where’s 
the harm? We hate the same object; we are 
agreed in our hatred, but we differ in our love. 
That’s the whole story.”’ 

“It’s a curious alliance at all events,’’ said De 
Marsay, embracing Comtesse Félix and Raoul ina 
single glance. 

**It won’t last long,’’ said Rastignac, who thought 
a little too much about politics, like all new re- 
cruits. 

‘‘What do you say to it, my dear friend?’’ Ma- 
dame d’Espard asked the countess. 

**1 don’t understand politics at all.’’ 

“*You will go into it, madame,’’ said De Marsay, 
‘‘and then you will be our enemy twice over.”’ 

Nathan and Marie did not understand the allusion 
until De Marsay had gone. Rastignac followed him, 
and Madame d’Espard accompanied them to the door 
of her first salon. The two lovers forgot the minis- 
ter’s epigrams, for they found that they were blessed 
with a few moments to themselves. Marie quickly 
drew off her glove and gave her hand to Raoul, who 


310 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


took it and kissed it as if he were only eighteen. 
The countess’s glance expressed such whole-hearted, 
noble affection that Raoul’s eyes were wet with the 
tears that men of a nervous temperament always 
have at their command. 

‘‘Where can I see you? where can I speak to 
you?’ he said. ‘‘I shall die if | must always dis- 
guise my voice, my look, my heart, my love.”’ 

Marie, deeply moved by his tears, promised to 
drive in the Bois whenever the weather was not too 
bad. This promise gave Raoul more happiness than 
Florine had given him in five years. 

‘*] have so much to say to you! I suffer so from 
the silence to which we are condemned !”’ 

The countess was gazing at him as if fascinated, 
unable to reply, when the marchioness returned. 

‘*How’s this! you couldn’t find any answer for 
De Marsay ?”’ she said as she came in. 

‘We must respect the dead,’’ said Raoul. ‘‘Don’t 
you see that he’s on his last legs? Rastignac is 
his nurse, he hopes to be mentioned in the will.’’ 

The countess pretended that she had calls to 
make; she was anxious to be gone in order not to 
betray herself. For that quarter of an hour Raoul 
had sacrificed precious time and his most pressing 
interests. Marie as yet knew nothing of the details 
of this life of a bird on the tree, combined with most 
complicated business interests and most exacting 
toil. 

When two persons united by undying love lead 
lives knit together more closely every day by bonds 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 310 


of confidence, by scrutinizing together such difficul- 
ties as arise; when two hearts exchange regrets 
each night and morning, as their mouths exchange 
sighs, share the same agonies of suspense, beat fast 
together at sight of an obstacle, then everything 
counts; a woman knows how much love may be ex- 
pressed in an averted glance, how much effort ex- 
pended in a rapid journey ; she keeps her hands busy, 
goes and comes, hopes, suffers with the hard-work- 
ing, worried man; her complaints are addressed to 
things; she does not doubt, for she knows and ap- 
preciates the details of life. But at the outset of 
a passion in which so much ardor and suspicion and 
unreasonableness are displayed, and where neither 
party really knows the other; with lazy women, at 
whose door love must always be doing sentry-duty ; 
with women who have an exaggerated idea of their 
dignity and are determined to be obeyed in every- 
thing, even when they give orders for the commis- 
sion of a crime that may ruin a man, love, in Paris 
in our time, demands the performance of impossible 
tasks. Women of the world have remained under 
the sway of the traditions of the eighteenth century, 
when everyone had a fixed and definite position. 
Few women know aught of the perplexities that 
beset the existence of most men, all of whom have 
a position to make for themselves, a fortune to es- 
tablish on a firm basis, glory in embryo. To-day, 
the men whose fortune is established can be counted ; 
only the old men have time to love, the young are 
rowing in the galleys of ambition, even as Nathan 


312 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


was pulling an oar there. The women, still unre- 
signed to this change in manners, loan the time of 
which they have an over-supply to those who have 
not enough; they have no conception of any other 
occupations, any other aim than their own. Although 
the lover may have overcome the Lernean hydra to 
reach their feet, he has no credit for it; everything 
else is blotted out by the joy of seeing him; they 
are grateful to him only for their own emotions, 
without taking the trouble to ascertain what they 
may have cost. If they have invented, during their 
hours of idleness, one of those stratagems which 
they have at command, they exhibit its brilliancy 
as if it were a jewel. You have wrenched aside 
the iron bars of necessity, while they were putting 
on the mittens or adjusting the cloak of a ruse; to 
them the palm, and do not seek to wrest it from 
them. They are right too, for how can we refuse 
to sever every tie for a woman who does as much 
for us? They demand as much as they give. 

Raoul realized when he came to himself how 
difficult it would be for him to conduct a love-affair 
in society, the ten-horse chariot of journalism, his 
dramatic productions and his unsavory business 
affairs. 

‘‘The paper will be detestable to-night,’’ he said 
to himself as he left the house; ‘‘there won’t be a 
single article by myself, and it’s the second number 
too!’ 


* 


Madame Félix de Vandenesse went three times to 
the Bois de Boulogne without seeing Raoul there, 
and returned home in despair and sorely troubled. 
Nathan did not choose to make his appearance there 
otherwise than with all the splendor of a prince of 
the press. He spent the whole week in finding two 
horses and a suitable cabriolet and tiger, in con- 
vincing his partners of the necessity of saving such 
valuable time as his, and in having his equipage 
charged to the general expenses of the newspaper. 
His partners, Massol and Du Tillet, acceded to his 
request so readily that he thought they were the 
best fellows in the world. Without this assistance, 
life would have been impossible to Raoul; it was 
becoming so hard a life, however, although with an 
admixture of the most delectable pleasures of ideal 
love, that many people, even those endowed with 
the strongest constitutions, would have been unable 
to stand up under such dissipation. 

A vehement and requited passion occupies much 
space in an ordinary existence; but when its object 
is a woman in Madame de Vandenesse’s position, it 
may be expected to exhaust the vitality of a man 
with so many demands upon his time as Raoul. 
These are the duties which his passion placed be- 
fore all others. He must appear on horseback in 

(313) 


314 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


the Bois de Boulogne almost every day between two 
and three o’clock, in the guise of a gentleman of 
leisure. There he would learn at whose house or 
at which theatre he could see Madame de Vande- 
nesse again inthe evening. He never left the salons 
until toward midnight after pouncing upon a word 
or two long awaited, a few morsels of tenderness be- 
stowed by stealth under the table, between two doors 
or as she entered her carriage. Most of the time, 
Marie, who had launched him in the first society, 
procured invitations for him to dine at certain 
houses at which she was a frequent guest. Was it 
not a simple matter? Raoul, dominated by his pas- 
sion, was restrained by pride from speaking of his 
work. He was compelled to obey the most capri- 
cious behests of this innocent sovereign, and at the 
same time to follow the parliamentary debates and 
the torrent of politics, keep an eye on the manage- 
ment of the newspaper, and produce two plays, the 
receipts from which were indispensable to him. 
Madame de Vandenesse had but to pout when he 
tried to escape attendance at a ball, a concert or a 
drive, and he at once sacrificed his interests to her 
good pleasure. When he quitted the gay world be- 
tween one and two o’clock in the morning, he would 
return home to work until eight or nine, sleep 
almost none at all, and then be on his feet again to 
decide upon the opinions to be espoused by the 
newspaper in concert with the influential men upon 
whom its existence depended, and to discuss the 
innumerable details of the management. In these 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 315 


days, journalism has a hand in everything, manufac- 
tures, public and private concerns, new enterprises, 
the productions of literary men and everything that 
touches their self-esteem. When Nathan had been 
running all day from his editorial office to the 
theatre, from the theatre to the Chamber, from the 
Chamber to some of his creditors, tired out and 
worried as he was, he must appear before Marie 
with tranquil, blissful mien, gallop up to her door 
with the serenity of a man who has no cares and 
knows no weariness, save that of happiness. 
When, as his reward for all this unsuspected devo- 
tion, he received nothing more than the sweetest of 
words, the most touching assurances of everlasting 
attachment, a warm pressure of the hand, stolen 
during a few seconds of solitude, a passionate word 
or two in exchange for his own, he felt that he was 
cheating himself by leaving her in ignorance of the 
enormous price he was paying for what our fathers 
would have called these /rifling testimonials. 

The opportunity for an explanation was not long 
in coming. One lovely day in April, the countess 
accepted Nathan’s arm in an out-of-the-way corner 
of the Bois de Boulogne; she had a crow to pluck 
with him—one of those charming little quarrels 
about nothing, out of which women can build mount- 
ains. Instead of greeting him with a smile upon 
her lips, her face radiant with happiness, her eyes 
lighted up with some ingenious, joyous thought, she 
was grave and serious. 

‘‘What is wrong with you?’’ said Nathan. 


316 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


‘Don’t concern yourself about such trifles,’’ said 
she; ‘‘you must know that women are children.’’ 

**Have I offended you ?’’ 

**Should I be here ?’’ 

“*But you don’t smile at me, you don’t seem glad 
to see me.’’ 

‘*I have a fit of the sulks, haven’t I?’’ said she, 
looking at him with the resigned air which women 
adopt when they wish to pose as victims. 

Nathan walked forward a few steps with a feeling 
of apprehension that saddened him and made his 
heart sick. 

‘*It must be,’’ he said after a pause, ‘‘some trivial 
fright, one of the vague suspicions that you place 
above the greatest concerns of life; you have the 
power to change the world’s course with a feather 
or a straw!”’ 

‘*Sarcasm, eh?—I expected it,’’ said she, hanging 
her head. 

‘*Marie, my angel, don’t you see that I said that 
to tear your secret from you?”’ 

‘*My secret will still be a secret even after you 
have been entrusted with it.’’ 

“Well, tell me—’’ 

“I am not loved,’’ she retorted, glancing at him 
out of the corner of her eye with the cunning, mis- 
chievous expression with which women cross- 
examine the men they wish to torture. 

“*Not loved ??’—cried Nathan. 

‘No, you have too many irons in the fire. Where 
am I in the midst of all the excitement? neglected 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 317 


at every turn. Yesterday | came to the Bois and 
waited for you—’’ 

Ad) EV) ee 

“1 wore a new dress for your benefit, and you 
didn’t come; where were you—”’ 

<Rut—- 

“1 had no idea. I went to Madame d’Espard’s 
and I didn’t find you there.”’ 

“Rot 

‘In the evening, at the opera, I never took my 
eyes off the balcony, every time the door opened my 
heart beat as if it would burst.’’ 

‘<But—~ 

‘‘What an evening! You have no conception of 
these tempests in the heart.’’ 

Shut. 

‘*Such emotion wears one’s life away—’’ 

Set 

‘*Well ?”’ said she. 

“True, it does wear one’s life out,’’ said Nathan, 
‘fand before many months you will have consumed 
mine. Your insane reproaches extort my secret 
from me too—You say I don’t love you?—Ah! I love 
you too well.”’ 

He painted his position in vivid colors, told her 
of his vigils, enumerated his engagements at stated 
hours, and explained the necessity of success, the 
insatiable demands of a newspaper which is called 
upon to pass judgment, before all others, upon cur- 
rent events and to make no mistake under pain of 
losing its power, and the innumerable rapid studies 


318 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


he was required to make upon the questions which 
succeeded each other as swiftly as clouds in that 
consuming age. 

Raoul was put in the wrong in a moment. As 
the Marquise d’Espard had told him, nothing is 
more artless than a first love. He soon found 
that the countess was guilty of loving too much. 
A loving woman responds to everything with a 
confession, an endearment or a caress. The count- 
ess, when this prodigious life was unrolled before 
her, was overwhelmed with admiration. She had 
made Nathan a very great man in her thoughts, 
she found him sublime. She accused herself of 
loving too much, begged him to come at his own 
time; she smoothed his ambitious labors by rais- 
ing her eyes to heaven. She would wait! Thence- 
forth she would sacrifice her own_ pleasures. 
Although her desire was to be only a stepping- 
stone, she was an obstacle!—she wept with de- 
spair. 

‘“‘Women,’’ she said with tears in her eyes, ‘‘can 
do nothing but love, while men have a thousand 
things to occupy them; we can only think and pray 
and adore.’”’ 

Such a wealth of love deserved a reward. She 
looked around, like the nightingale as he flies down 
from his branch to a spring, to see if they were 
alone in the solitude, if no spy were hidden in the 
silence; then she raised her head to Raoul, who 
bent his to meet it; she allowed him to take a kiss, 
the first, the only one she was destined to bestow 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 319 


clandestinely, and she was happier at that moment 
than she had been for five years. 

Raoul felt that all his labors were rewarded. 
They walked along together on the road from 
Auteuil to Boulogne, without any definite idea where 
they were going; they were obliged at last to return 
to their carriages, walking with the regular, rhyth- 
mical step which lovers know. Raoul had con- 
fidence in that kiss, bestowed with the modest will- 
ingness that sanctity of sentiment imparts. All the 
harm came from the world, and not from this woman 
who was so entirely his. Raoul no longer regretted 
the trials of his tempestuous life, which Marie was 
certain to forget in the heat of her first desire, like 
all women who are not constant witnesses of the 
terrible struggles of such exceptional lives. Under 
the sway of the grateful admiration, characteristic 
of a woman’s love, Marie trod the fine sand of a 
bypath with a quick, firm step, saying, as did 
Raoul, very few words, but heartfelt and full of 
meaning. 

The sky was without a cloud, the great trees were 
budding, and here and there a speck of green gave 
life to their myriads of slender brown twigs. The 
shrubs, the birches, the willows, the poplars were 
putting forth their first tender, still diaphanous 
shoots. Such harmony no soul can resist. Love 
interpreted nature to the countess, as it had inter- 
preted society to her. 

*‘l wish that you had never loved anyone but 
me!’’ said she. 


320 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


‘Your wish is gratified,’? Raoul replied. ‘‘We 
have taught each other what true love is.”’ 

He spoke the truth. In posing as a pure man 
before this youthful heart, Raoul had resort to high- 
flown phrases of lofty sentiment. At first, purely 
speculative and self-seeking, his passion had become 
sincere. He began by lying, he ended by speaking 
the truth. 

There is, however, in every writer a sentiment, 
difficult to restrain, that leads him to admire what 
is morally beautiful. In fine, by dint of making 
sacrifices, a man becomes interested in the person 
who demands them. Women of the world have an 
instinctive perception of this truth, just as cour- 
tesans have; indeed it may be that they put it in 
practice without knowing it. So it was that the 
countess, after her first burst of gratitude and sur- 
prise, was enraptured to find that she had inspired 
so many sacrifices, had caused him to overcome so 
many obstacles. She was beloved by a man who 
was worthy of her. Raoul did not know all that 
his false grandeur required of him; for women do 
not allow their lovers to descend from their pedes- 
tals. A god can not be pardoned for the slightest 
baseness. Marie did not know the keyword of the 
enigma Raoul gave his friends at the supper-party 
at Véry’s. This low-born writer’s struggle for 
existence had occupied the first ten years of his 
youth; he longed to be beloved by one of the 
queens of the world of fashion. Vanity, without 
which love is very weak, says Chamfort, kept 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 321 


his passion alight and added fuel to it from day 
to day. 

‘Can you swear to me that you do not and never 
will belong to any other woman ?”’ said Marie. 

“‘There would be no more time in my life than 
there is room in my heart for another woman,’’ he 
replied, believing that he was telling the truth, so 
great was his contempt for Florine. 

‘*] believe you,’’ said she. 

When they reached the avenue where the car- 
riages were waiting, Marie dropped Nathan’s arm, 
and he assumed a respectful attitude as if he had 
just met her; he escorted her to her carriage, hat in 
hand, then followed her along Charles X. Avenue, 
breathing the dust raised by her horses and gazing 
at her feathers, drooping like the weeping willow, 
as the wind blew them about. 

Notwithstanding Marie’s noble self-denial, Raoul, 
inflamed by his passion, went wherever she was; 
he adored the reproachful yet happy expression the 
countess assumed in an ineffectual attempt to scold 
him, when she saw him wasting the time that was 
so valuable to him. Marie undertook the direction 
of his labors, gave him explicit orders as to the em- 
ployment of his time, and remained at home in order 
to deprive him of all excuse for dissipation. She 
read his paper every morning and became the herald 
of the renown of Etienne Lousteau the feuilletonist, 
whom she thought delightful, of Félicien Vernou, 
Claude Vignon and all the editors. She advised 
Raoul to do justice to De Marsay when he died, and 

2I 


322 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


read with rapture the noble and eloquent eulogy he 
wrote of the dead minister, although he blamed his 
machiavelism and hatred for the masses. Naturally 
she was present, in a front seat at the Gymnase, at 
the first performance of the play upon which Nathan 
relied to support him in his undertaking, and which 
seemed to make a tremendous hit. She was de- 
ceived by the hired applause. 

“You haven’t said farewell to the Italiens, have 
you ?’’ said Lady Dudley, to whose house she went 
after the performance. 

**No, | have been to the Gymnase. It was the 
first night of a new play.’’ 

“I can’t endure vaudevilles. 1 feel the same way 
about them that Louis XIV. felt about Tenier’s pic- 
tures,’’ said Lady Dudley. 

‘*For my part,’’ said Madame d’Espard, ‘‘l think 
that our authors are making progress. The vaude- 
villes of to-day are delightful comedies, bubbling 
over with wit, and they demand first-rate talent; I 
enjoy them very much.”’ 

‘“‘The actors are excellent, too,’’ said Marie. 
“‘They acted extremely well at the Gymnase to- 
night; the play suited them, for the dialogue is very 
bright and clever.’”’ 

**Like Beaumarchais,’’ said Lady Dudley. 

‘‘Monsieur Nathan isn’t a Moliére yet; but—’’ 
said Madame d’Espard with a glance at the 
countess, 

‘*He makes vaudevilles,’’? said Madame Charles 
de Vandenesse. 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 323 


‘““And unmakes ministries,’? added Madame de 
Manerville. 

The countess said nothing; she tried to reply 
with some biting epigram; she felt that her heart 
was in a ferment of rage; she could find nothing 
better to say than: 

‘*He will make them perhaps. ’”’ 

All the women exchanged mysterious glances of 
intelligence. When Marie de Vandenesse had taken 
her leave, Moina de Saint-Héren exclaimed: 

‘*Why, she worships Nathan!’’ 

“‘She makes no mystery of it,’’ observed Madame 
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The month of May arrived and Vandenesse took 
his wife away to his estate in the country, where 
her only consolation was the receipt of passionate 
letters from Raoul, to whom she wrote every day. 

The countess’s absence might have saved him 
from the chasm he had stepped into, if Florine had 
been with him; but he was alone in the midst of 
friends who became his secret enemies as soon as 
he exhibited a purpose to domineer overthem. His 
collaborators hated him for the moment, ready to 
hold out a helping hand and console him if he failed; 
ready to fall down and fawn upon him if he suc- 
ceeded. So goes the literary world. There, no man 
loves anybody save his inferiors. Every man is 
the foe of anyone who seeks to rise. This general 
jealousy increases tenfold the opportunities of 
mediocre men who arouse neither envy nor suspi- 
cion, but burrow along like moles, and, however 
stupid they may be, find themselves gazetted in the 
Moniteur for three or four lucrative places, while 
the men of talent are still fighting at the door to 
prevent one another from going in. 

The underground hostility of these pretended 
friends, whom Florine would have detected with 
the innate genius of the courtesan for putting her 
hand upon the truth among a thousand hypotheses, 
was not the greatest danger by which Raoul was 

(325) 


326 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


threatened. His two associates, Massol the advo- 
cate and Du Tillet the banker, had conceived the 
scheme of harnessing his ardor to the chariot in 
which they were showing themselves off, intending 
to eject him as soon as he ceased to be in a condi- 
tion to carry on the newspaper, or to deprive him of 
that great power as soon as they wanted to make 
use of it. In their eyes, Nathan stood for a certain 
sum of money to be consumed, a literary force as ef- 
fective as ten pens to be employed. Massol, one of 
those advocates who mistake the faculty of speak- 
ing at indefinite length for eloquence, who possess 
the secret of wearying their hearers whatever they 
may say, the pest of assemblies where they cheapen 
everything, and who are determined to become per- 
sonages at any price, no longer aimed at being 
keeper of the seals; he had seen five or six of them 
succeed one another in four years, and had taken a 
dislike to the gown. He desired, even as he desired 
money in his purse, a chair in the department of 
Public Instruction, a seat at the Council of State, 
the whole seasoned by the Cross of the Legion of 
Honor. Du Tillet and Baron de Nucingen had 
guaranteed the Cross and his appointment as master 
of requests if he would enter into their plans; he 
deemed them better able to fulfill their promises 
than Nathan, and he obeyed them blindly. The 
better to pull the wool over Raoul’s eyes they 
allowed him to manage the paper without inter- 
ference. Du Tillet used it only to forward his 
stock-jobbing interests, which Raoul understood 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 327 


nothing about; but he had already given Rastignac 
to understand through Baron de Nucingen that the 
sheet would be tacitly indulgent to the government, 
on the single condition that support should be given 
his candidacy for the succession to Monsieur de 
Nucingen, soon to be made a peer of France, who 
sat in the Chamber for a sort of rotten borough with 
very few electors, where the paper was sent gratis 
in profusion. 

Thus Raoul was fooled by the banker and the ad- 
vocate, who took infinite delight in seeing him on 
his throne at the office of the newspaper, making 
the most of all his chances, reaping all the fruits of 
selfishness or of other qualities. Nathan was de- 
lighted with them, and, as at the time of his request 
for funds with which to stock his stable, thought 
them the best fellows in the world; he believed 
that he was fooling them. 

Men of imagination to whom hope is the essence 
of life, are never willing to say to themselves that 
the most perilous moment in matters of business, is 
that when everything seems to be going on in ac- 
cordance with their wishes. It was a moment of 
triumph by which Nathan profited, for he made his 
appearance in the political and financial world: Du 
Tillet presented him at Nucingen’s house. Madame 
de Nucingen welcomed Raoul with warmth, less on 
his own account than on Madame de Vandenesse’s; 
but when she let drop a word or two concerning the 
countess, he thought that he was wonderfully clever 
to use Florine as a screen; he descanted with 


328 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


fatuous generosity upon his relations with the 
actress, which it was impossible for him to break. 
Does a man abandon certain happiness for the 
coquetries of the Faubourg Saint-Germain ? 
Nathan, hoodwinked by Nucingen and Rastignac, 
by Du Tillet and Blondet, pompously accorded his 
support to the doctrinaires in the formation of one 
of their ephemeral cabinets. Then, in order to go 
into business with clean hands, he declined, with a 
great show of disdain, to accept a share in certain 
enterprises that were floated with the assistance of 
his paper,—a man who did not hesitate to com- 
promise his friends and to deal in a way that showed 
no nice sense of honor with certain manufacturing 
concerns at divers critical moments! Such contrasts, 
engendered by vanity or by ambition, are to be 
found in many similar lives. The outer cloak must 
be made to appear magnificent to the public, soa 
man borrows cloth from his friends to cover the 
holes. Nevertheless, two months after the coun- 
tess’s departure, Raoul had a disagreeable quarter 
of an hour which caused him some anxiety in the 
midst of his triumph. Du Tillet had advanced a 
hundred thousand francs. The money furnished by 
Florine, a third of the original capital, had been 
eaten up by the public charges and the enormous 
expenses attending the first establishment of the 
paper. It was necessary to provide for the future. 
The banker accommodated the editor by taking his 
notes of hand at four months for fifty thousand 
francs. Thus Du Tillet held Raoul by the halter 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 329 


of the note of hand. This supplementary contri- 
bution supplied the paper with funds for six months. 
In the eyes of some writers, six months are an eter- 
nity. Moreover, by ingenious advertising, by em- 
ploying a number of agents, and by offering illusory 
advantages to subscribers, they had scraped together 
two thousand of them. This partial success encour- 
aged Raoul to throw banknotes into the furnace. 
Given a little more talent, let a political prosecu- 
tion be undertaken against them, or something that 
might pass for persecution, and Raoul would become 
one of the modern condottieri whose ink is more 
effective to-day than the gunpowder of former 
days. 

Unfortunately this arrangement was made before 
Florine returned with about fifty thousand francs. 
Instead of creating a reserve fund, Raoul, sure of 
success, because he saw that success was necessary, 
humiliated at having already accepted money from 
the actress, dazzled by the insidious laudation of his 
flatterers, and feeling in his heart that his love had 
ennobled him, deceived Florine as to his position 
and forced her to use the money in refurnishing her 
house. Under the existing circumstances it was 
essential to make a magnificent show. The actress, 
who did not need to be urged, burdened herself with 
debts to the amount of thirty thousandfrancs. She 
had a charming house all to herself, on Rue Pigalle, 
where all her former coterie reassembled. The 
house of a damsel in Florine’s position was neutral 
ground, very favorable for the ambitious politicians, 


330 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


who did as Louis XIV. did in Holland: made treaties 
under Raoul’s roof without Raoul. 

Nathan had held in reserve for Florine’s reappear- 
ance, a play in which the principal part was admir- 
ably suited to her abilities. This vaudeville-drama 
was to be Raoul’s farewell to the stage. The news- 
papers, who incurred no expense by reason of this 
act of complaisance for Raoul, premeditated such an 
ovation to Florine that the Comédie-Francaise 
talked about offering her an engagement. The 
critics declared that Florine was the heir of Made- 
moiselle Mars. This triumph turned the actress’s 
head to a sufficient extent to interfere with her 
study of the course Nathan was pursuing; she was 
living in a whirl of fétes and banquets. Queen of 
a court filled with a pressing throng of petitioners, 
one for his book, another for his play, another for 
his ballet-dancer, another for his theatre, another 
for his enterprise, another for an article, she aban- 
doned herself to all the delights of the power of the 
press, seeing therein the dawn of ministerial in- 
fluence. To judge from what was said by those 
who frequented her salon, Nathan was a great poli- 
tician. Nathan had shown good judgment in his 
venture, he would be a deputy, and certainly a 
minister before long, like so many others before 
him. 

Actresses rarely say no to anyone who flatters 
them. Florine was credited with too much talent 
in the feuilleton to distrust the paper and those who 
conducted it. She knew too little of the mechanism 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 331 


of the press to trouble herself about the means. 
Girls of Florine’s stamp never look at anything but 
results. As for Nathan, he believed, from that 
time on, that at the next session he would take a 
hand in affairs, with two former journalists, one of 
whom, then a minister, was trying to turn out his 
colleagues in order to strengthen himself. 

Nathan was delighted to see Florine again after 
her six months’ absence, and nonchalantly fell back 
into his old ways. The coarse woof of his life he 
secretly embellished with the loveliest flowers of 
his ideal passion, and with the pleasure Florine 
strewed thereon. His letters to Marie were master- 
pieces of love, grace and style. Nathan made her 
the light of his life, he undertook nothing without 
consulting his good genius. In despair at being on 
the popular side, there were moments when he 
longed to espouse the cause of the aristocracy; but, 
accustomed though he was to feats of agility, it 
seemed to him absolutely impossible to leap from 
the Left to the Right; it was easier to become a 
minister. Marie’s precious letters were deposited 
in one of the portfolios with secret compartments 
put on the market by Huret or Fichet, the two in- 
ventors who were carrying on a war of advertise- 
ments and placards in Paris as to which could make 
the safest and most reliable locks. This portfolio 
was kept in Florine’s new boudoir, where Raoul 
worked. No one is so easy to deceive as a woman 
to whom one is accustomed to tell everything; she 
is suspicious of nothing, because she thinks that 


332 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


she sees and knows everything. Moreover, since 
her return the actress was a witness of Raoul’s 
whole life, and could see nothing irregular in it. 
She would never have imagined that the portfolio, 
which she had hardly noticed, and which was kept 
locked without any affectation of mystery, contained 
treasures of love, a rival’s letters, which, at Raoul’s 
request, the countess directed to the office of the 
paper. 

Nathan then seemed to occupy an extremely bril- 
liant position. He had many friends. Two plays 
written in collaboration, which had just been suc- 
cessful, provided funds to gratify his luxurious 
tastes and banished all anxiety for the future. Nor 
did he worry at all concerning his debt to his friend 
Du Tillet. 

‘‘How can a man distrust a friend?’ he would 
say, when Blondet, as sometimes happened, ex- 
pressed some apprehension, induced by his habit of 
analyzing everything. 

‘*But we have no need to distrust even our ene- 
mies,’’ said Florine. 

Nathan defended Du Tillet. Du Tillet was the 
kindest, the most obliging, the most upright of men. 
This sort of rope-walker’s existence without a bal- 
ancing-pole would have horrified anyone, even the 
most indifferent, if he could have penetrated the 
mystery; but Du Tillet contemplated it with the 
stoicism and dry eye of a parvenu. There was a 
sort of fiendish mockery in the friendly good-humor 
of his treatment of Nathan. One day he shook 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 333 


hands with him as they left Florine’s house together 
and watched him enter his cabriolet. 

“‘That fellow goes to the Bois de Boulogne in 
magnificent style,’’ he said to Lousteau, the envious 
man par excellence, ‘‘and in six months’ time perhaps 
he’ll be at Clichy.’’ 

“‘He? Never!’’ cried Lousteau; ‘‘Florine’s on 
hand.”’ 

‘‘How do you know, my boy, that he’!l keep her? 
As for you, you’re worth a thousand of him, and 
you’ll certainly be our editor-in-chief six months 
from now.”’ 














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In October, the notes of hand fell due; Du Tillet 
obligingly renewed them, but for two months only, 
and increased in amount by the discount and a new 
loan. Sure of victory, Raoul drained the very 
springs dry. Madame Félix de Vandenesse was to 
return in a few days, a month earlier than usual, 
drawn back to Paris by a frenzied longing to see 
Nathan, who did not choose to be at the mercy 
of a lack of money when he resumed his militant 
life. 

Correspondence, in which the pen is always bolder 
than the tongue, in which the thought, clothed in its 
flowers, touches upon every subject and can say what 
it will, had brought the countess to the highest pitch 
of exaltation; she saw in Raoul one of the most 
transcendent geniuses of the age, an exquisite, mis- 
understood heart, without stain and worthy of ado- 
ration; she saw him fearlessly putting forth his hand 
to stay the prodigality of the ruling powers. Soon 
that voice, so sweet in love, would thunder from the 
tribune. Marie’s life ran in interlaced circles like 
those of a sphere, at whose centre is the world. 
With no inclination for the tranquil pleasures of 
home, she welcomed the excitement of this tempest- 
uous life, communicated by a clever, loving pen; 
she kissed the letters penned amid the smoke of 
battles of the press, in moments stolen from his 

(335) 


336 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


hours of study; she was conscious of their value; 
she was sure that she filled his whole heart, that 
she had no rivals save glory and ambition; she 
found means in her solitude to exert all her strength, 
she was happy that she had chosen well: Nathan 
was an angel. 

Fortunately her absence in the country and the 
obstacles that existed between Raoul and herself 
had silenced the slanderous tongues of the world. 
So during the last days of autumn, they resumed 
their drives in the Bois de Boulogne; they could 
meet nowhere else until the salons were once more 
thrown open. Raoul was able to enjoy more at ease 
the pure, exquisite delights of his ideal life and 
conceal it from Florine: he worked a little less as 
matters were running smoothly at the newspaper 
office and each editor knew what he had to do. He 
involuntarily made comparisons, always to the ad- 
vantage of the actress, and yet the countess lost 
nothing in his sight. 

Overspent anew by the manceuvres which his 
passion of head and heart for a woman at the top of 
the social ladder compelled him to perform, Raoul 
put forth superhuman strength in order to be in 
three places at once: in society, at his office and in 
the wings. At the time when Florine, who was 
grateful to him for everything, who almost shared 
his labors and his anxiety, was flitting in and out, 
pouring out genuine happiness upon him in streams, 
without high-flown phrases, without any accompani- 
ment of remorse, the countess, with her insatiable 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 337, 


eyes and her chaste corsage, forgot his gigantic 
labors and the pains he often took to see her for an 
instant. Instead of domineering over him, Florine 
allowed him to take her up and put her down and 
take her up again like a cat that falls upon its feet 
and shakes its ears. Such easy-going morals are in 
admirable accord with the inclinations of men who 
live by their thoughts, and any artist would have 
made the most of them, as Nathan did, without 
abandoning the pursuit of his beautiful ideal love, 
that noble passion which fascinated his poetic in- 
stincts, his secret dreams of grandeur, his social 
vanity. Fully realizing the crash that would follow 
any indiscretion, he would say to himself: ‘‘Neither 
the countess nor Florine will ever know anything 
about it!’? They were so far removed from each 
other ! 

With the beginning of winter, Raoul reappeared 
in society at his apogee: he was almost a personage. 
Rastignac, who had fallen with the ministry when 
it went to pieces at De Marsay’s death, leaned upon 
Raoul and bolstered him up by his laudation. Ma- 
dame de Vandenesse thereupon determined to find 
out if her husband had changed his opinion with 
regard to him, a year having elapsed. So she ques- 
tioned him anew, thinking to be revenged on him 
in brilliant style—a thing that all women, even the 
noblest, the least worldly, thoroughly enjoy; for it 
would be perfectly safe to wager that the angels do 
not lay aside their self-esteem when they gather 
about the Holy of Holies. 


22 


338 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


“‘The only thing he lacked was to be the dupe of 
schemers,’’ the count replied. 

Félix, whose experience of the world and of poli- 
tics made him very clear-sighted, had fathomed 
Raoul’s position. He calmly explained to his wife 
that Fieschi’s exploit had resulted in attaching 
many lukewarm men to the interests threatened in 
the person of King Louis-Philippe. Newspapers, 
whose colors were not sharply defined, would lose 
subscribers, for journalism was going to be simpli- 
fied with politics. If Nathan had put his fortune 
into his newspaper, he would soon come to the end 
of his rope. This opinion was so clear and so 
reasonable, although expressed in few words as an 
off-hand answer to a question in which he took no 
interest, by a man who was a shrewd calculator of 
the chances of all parties, that it alarmed Madame 
de Vandenesse. 

‘‘Are you so deeply interested in him?’ Félix 
asked his wife. 

‘‘Only as a man whose wit amuses me and whom 
I like to talk with.’’ 

This reply was made in so perfectly natural a 
tone that the count suspected nothing. 

The next day at four o’clock, at Madame d’Es- 
pard’s, Marie and Raoul had a long, whispered con- 
versation. The countess expressed fears which 
Raoul dissipated, only too happy to crush Félix’s 
conjugal grandeur with epigrams. He proceeded to 
take his revenge. Hedescribed the count as a man 
of small mind and behind the times, who would 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 339 


measure the Revolution of July with the yardstick 
of the Restoration, who refused to recognize the 
triumph of the middle-class, the new force in soci- 
ety, and a genuine force whether temporary or last- 
ing. Great noblemen were no longer possible, the 
reign of actual superiority had arrived. Instead of 
taking to heart the indirect, impartial judgment of 
an experienced politician dispassionately replying 
to questions, Raoul strutted about on stilts and 
draped himself in the purple robes of his success. 
What woman is there who has not more faith in her 
lover than in her husband? So Madame de Vande- 
nesse, relieved of her apprehensions, entered upon 
the life of repressed vexations, of trifling stolen 
pleasures, of clandestine pressures of the hand, her 
sustenance of the preceding winter,—a life which 
ends in leading a woman beyond bounds when the 
man she loves has some resolution and is impatient 
of obstacles. 

Luckily for her, Raoul, appeased by Florine, was 
not dangerous. Moreover, he was bound hand and 
foot by important interests which made it impossi- 
ble for him to take advantage of his good fortune. 
Nevertheless, any sudden disaster befalling him, 
fresh obstacles, or a fit of impatience might hurry 
the countess intoan abyss. Raoul caught a glimpse 
of such a tendency on her part, when Du Tillet, 
toward the end of December, called for payment of 
his notes. The rich banker, who said that he was 
pressed for money, advised Raoul to borrow the 
money for a fortnight from a usurer, Gigonnet, for 


{ 


340 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


instance, the providence at twenty-five per cent of 
all youths in straitened circumstances. In a few 
days, the paper would effect its grand January re- 
newals, there would be money in the cash-box, and 
then Du Tillet would see. Indeed, why should not 
Nathan write a play? From sheer pride, Nathan 
was determined to pay the notes at any price. Du 
Tillet gave him a letter to the usurer, where- 
upon Gigonnet advanced the money on notes of 
hand drawn at twenty days. Instead of seeking 
for an explanation of his readiness to oblige, Raoul 
was angry with himself for not asking for more. 
Many men of the most eminent intellectual powers 
act in the same way; they see food for jesting 
in matters of serious importance; they seem to 
keep their mind in reserve for their works, and 
make no use of it in everyday life for fear of 
cheapening it. 

Raoul described his morning’s experience to Flo- 
rine and Blondet; he sketched Gigonnet for them to 
the life, his little papier de Réveilion, his staircase, 
his asthmatic bell and the stag’s foot bell-pull, his 
little worn-out straw pallet, his hearth, where there 
was no more fire than in his eyes; he made them 
laugh heartily over this new uncle of his; they were 
not disturbed at the thought of Du Tillet in need of 
money or of a usurer so ready to open his cash-box. 
It was all caprice! 

“‘He only charged you fifteen per cent,’’ said 
Blondet, ‘‘and you ought to be very grateful to 


him. At twenty-five per cent we stop bowing to 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 341 


them; usury begins at fifty per cent: at that figure 
we despise them.”’ 

“‘Despise them!’’ said Florine. ‘‘Who is there 
among your friends who would loan you money at 
that rate without posing as your benefactor ?”’ 

“She is right, Iam lucky not to owe Du Tillet 
anything any more,’’ said Raoul. 

Why is it that men who are accustomed to look 
thoroughly into everything are so deficient in pene- 
tration in their own private affairs? Perhaps it is 
that the mind can not be completely equipped in 
every direction, perhaps artists live too entirely in 
the present to study the future, perhaps they keep 
their eyes too closely upon trivial things to see a 
trap, and believe that no one dares play a trick on 
them. 

The future was not slow in arriving. Twenty 
days later, the notes were protested; but at the 
Tribunal de Commerce, Florine demanded and ob- 
tained twenty-five days in which to provide for 
their payment. Raoul looked about to see where 
he stood, and requested an accounting; the result 
was that the receipts of the newspaper covered two- 
thirds of the outgo, and that the subscription list 
was dwindling. The great man became anxious 
and gloomy, but only to Florine, to whom he con- 
fided his troubles. Florine advised him to realize 
on the plays he was writing, by selling them out- 
right, and to assign his receipts from his other 
plays. In this way, he procured twenty thousand 
francs and reduced his debt to forty thousand. 


342 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


On February tenth, the twenty-five days expired. 
Du Tillet, who did not choose to have Nathan for 
a rival in the electoral college at which he proposed 
to offer himself as a candidate, leaving to Massol 
another college that was at the disposal of the 
ministry, ordered Gigonnet to pursue him to the 
last ditch. Aman imprisoned for debt can not offer 
himself as a candidate for the Chamber. The 
debtor’s prison at Clichy was destined to swallow 
the future minister. Florine herself was in constant 
communication with the bailiffs by reason of her 
personal debts; and in this crisis she had no other 
resource than the Myself! of Medea, for her furni- 
ture was seized. The ambitious creature heard the 
cracking sounds of approaching destruction in all 
parts of his newly-erected structure, built with no 
foundation. He knew that he lacked the necessary 
strength to carry on so vast an undertaking, much 
less was he capable of beginning it anew; so he 
must perish in the ruins of his dream. His love for 
the countess still afforded him some few gleams of 
life; it gave animation to his mask, but within, 
hope was dead. He did not suspect Du Tillet, he 
saw nobody’s hand but the usurer’s. Rastignac, 
Blondet, Lousteau, Vernou, Finot, Massol were care- 
ful not to enlighten a man who could on occasion 
exhibit such perilous activity. Rastignac, who 
wanted to return to power, made common cause 
with Nucingen and Du Tillet. The others experi- 
enced infinite delight in contemplating the death- 
agony of one of their equals, guilty of having 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 343 


attempted to be their master. Not one of them would 
have said a word to Florine; on the other hand, they 
praised Raoul to her, 

‘‘Nathan’s shoulders were broad enough to hold 
up the world, he would get out of it, and everything 
would go on all right!’ 

‘‘We got two new subscribers yesterday,’’ said 
Blondet gravely; ‘‘Raoul will be a deputy. As soon 
as the budget is voted, the order for dissolution will 
appear.’’ 

As Nathan had been sued, he could no longer ex- 
pect assistance from usurers. As Florine’s furniture 
had been seized, she had nothing to look to, save the 
chance of inspiring a passion in some idiot, who 
never turns up at the proper time. Nathan’s 
friends were all men without money or credit. An 
arrest would destroy his hopes of political advance- 
ment. To cap the climax of his woes, he was 
pledged to perform a vast amount of work for which 
he had been paid in advance; he could see no bot- 
tom to the abyss of misery in which he was soon to 
be plunged. In presence of so many threatened 
disasters, his audacity deserted him. Would the 
Comtesse de Vandenesse cleave to him, would she 
fly with him? Women are never impelled to take 
that step unless by absolute, undivided love, and 
their passion had not knitted them together by the 
mysterious ties of happpiness. But even if the 
countess should go abroad with him, she would be 
without means, stripped bare of all her property, 
and would be an additional burden. 


344 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


A second-rate mind, a vain man like Nathan, 
was certain to see and he did thereupon see in sui- 
cide the blade that would cut these Gordian knots. 
The idea of falling from his pedestal in the sight of 
the social circle into which he had made his way 
and which he had sought to master, of leaving the 
countess there, triumphant, and of becoming once 
more a base foot-soldier, was not to be endured. 
Folly danced and jingled her bells at the door of 
the imaginary palace in which the poet dwelt. In 
his extremity, Nathan awaited a possible stroke of 
luck and did not propose to kill himself until the 
last moment. 

During the last days, while the judgment was 
being certified and the petition for arrest and order 
thereon issued, Raoul’s face wore, wherever he 
went, the ominously indifferent expression which 
keen observers have noticed in all men predisposed 
to suicide, or who are contemplating it. The 
ghastly ideas they are caressing cause grayish 
clouds to settle upon their brow; their smile has an 
indefinable suggestion of fatality; their movements 
are solemn. The wretched creatures seem to be 
determined to consume the gilded fruit of life to the 
core; their eyes search the heart on every occasion; 
they hear their funeral knell in the air and are un- 
mindful of their surroundings. 

Marie noticed these alarming symptoms one 
evening at Lady Dudley’s; Raoul had remained 
behind, alone, upon a divan in the boudoir, while 
everybody was talking in the salon; the countess 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 345 


went to the door, he did not raise his head; he 
heard neither her breath nor the rustling of her silk 
dress; he was staring at a flower in the carpet with 
eyes dazed with suffering; he preferred death to 
abdication. Everybody has not Saint-Helena for a 
pedestal. Moreover, suicide was king in Paris at 
this time; is it not always the last word of societies 
wavering in their faith? Raoul had made up his 
mind to die. Despair is proportioned to the hopes 
that it succeeds, and Raoul’s had no other issue than 
the tomb. 

‘‘What’s the matter ?’’ said Marie, flying to his 
side. 

‘‘Nothing,’’ he replied. 

There is a way of saying that word nothing, be- 
tween lovers, that means just the opposite. Marie 
shrugged her shoulders. 

**You’re a perfect child!’’ said she. ‘‘Has any 
thing gone wrong with you ?”’ 

‘‘Not with me. However, you’ll know it all too 
soon, Marie,’’ he replied, affectionately. 

‘‘What were you thinking about when I came 
in?’’ she demanded authoritatively. 

“*Do you want to know the truth ?” 

She nodded. 

“| was thinking of you; I was saying to myself 
that many men in my place would have insisted 
upon being loved unreservedly; I am, am I not?’’ 

**Yes,’’ she said. 

‘*And I leave you pure and with no remorse,’’ 
continued Raoul, putting his arm around her and 


346 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


drawing her to him to kiss her forehead, at the risk 
of being surprised. ‘‘I might drag you into the pit, 
but you will remain in all your glory without a 
stain, on the brink. There is one thought that 
troubles me, however—’’ 

‘*What is it??? 

**You will despise me ?’’ 

She smiled superbly. 

**Yes, you will never believe in the holiness of 
my love; and then people will abuse me, I know. 
Women do not imagine that from the depths of our 
slime we raise our eyes to heaven, there to worship 
with our whole heart, a Marie. They mix up this 
sanctified love with paltry questions, they do not 
understand that men of lofty intelligence and poetic 
temperament can detach their minds from mere 
enjoyment in order to keep it in reserve, to worship 
at some cherished altar. But, Marie, the worship of 
the ideal is more fervent with us than with you: we 
find it in the woman who does not look for it in 
us.” 

‘*Why this deliverance ?’’ said she jestingly, like 
a woman who was sure of herself. 

“1 am leaving France; to-morrow you will learn 
why and how, by a letter that my valet will bring 
you. Adieu, Marie!’ 

He rushed from the room after straining the 
countess to his heart in a fierce embrace, and left 
her stupefied with grief. 


* 


‘‘Pray, what has happened, my dear,’’ said the 
Marquise d’Espard, entering the room in search of 
the countess; ‘‘what did Monsieur Nathan say to 
you? He left us with a most melodramatic air. 
You are too reasonable, perhaps, or too unreason- 
able.”’ 

The countess took Madame d’Espard’s arm and 
returned to the salon, taking her departure a few 
moments later. 

‘‘Perhaps she’s going to her first rendezvous,’’ 
suggested Lady Dudley to the marchioness. 

**I will find out,’’ replied Madame d’Espard; and 
she too left the house and followed the countess’s 
carriage. 

But Madame de Vandenesse’s coupé went in the 
direction of Faubourg Saint-Honoré. When Ma- 
dame d’Espard entered her own courtyard, she saw 
the Comtesse Félix driving on through the faubourg 
on her way to Rue du Rocher. 

Marie went to bed, but was unable to sleep, and 
passed the night reading a voyage to the North Pole 
without understanding a word of it. At half-past 
eight she received a letter from Raoul and hurriedly 
tore it open. The letter began with these classic 
words: 

‘*My dearest love, when you receive this letter, | 
shall be no more—’’ 

(347) 


348 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


She did not finish, but crumpled the paper ner- 
vously in her hand, rang for her maid, hastily 
donned a peignoir, thrust her feet into the first shoes 
that came to hand, wrapped herself in a shaw! and 
put on a hat; then she went out, bidding her maid 
tell the count that she had gone to see her sister, 
Madame du Tillet. 

‘‘Where did you leave your master ?’’ she asked 
Raoul’s servant. 

‘*At the office of his newspaper.”’ 

‘*Let us go there,’’ she said. 

To the great astonishment of her servants, she 
left the house on foot, before nine o’clock, evidently 
under the influence of intense excitement. Luckily 
for her, the maid informed the count that madame 
had just received a letter from Madame du Tillet 
which gave her a terrible shock, and that she had 
hurried off to her sister’s with the servant who 
brought her the letter. Vandenesse awaited his 
wife’s return to find out what it all meant. 

The countess entered a cab and was driven rapidly 
to the office of the newspaper. At that hour, the 
huge rooms occupied by the paper, in an old mansion 
on Rue Feydeau, were deserted; nobody was to be 
found but an office-boy, who was greatly aston- 
ished to see a pretty young woman rushing wildly 
through the rooms, asking where Monsieur Nathan 
was. 

‘*He’s at Mademoiselle Florine’s, of course,’’ he 
replied, taking the countess for a jealous rival who 
was intending to make a scene. 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 349 


‘“Where does he work when he is here?’’ she 
asked. 

‘*In an office, the key of which he carries in his 
pocket. ”’ 

‘1 wish to go there.”’ 

The boy led her to a small, dark room looking on 
a rear courtyard, formerly a dressing-room attached 
to a large bedroom, the alcove of which had not been 
destroyed. The office was at right angles with the 
bedroom. By opening the window of the latter, the 
countess could look through the office window and 
see what was taking place there: Nathan was 
sitting in the armchair of the editor-in-chief, writhing 
in the death-agony. 

‘*Break in the door and say nothing! I will buy 
your silence,’’ she said. ‘‘Don’t you see that Mon- 
sieur Nathan is dying?’ 

The boy ran to the printing-office for an iron form 
with which to break in the door. Raoul was dying 
of suffocation, like a common seamstress, through 
the medium of a chafing-dish of charcoal. He had 
just finished a letter to Blondet in which he begged 
him to give it out that his suicide was a stroke of 
apoplexy. The countess arrived in time; she 
ordered Raoul to be carried out to the cab, and hav- 
ing no idea where to take him to procure proper 
care, she drove to a hotel, took a room there and 
sent the office-boy for a doctor. 

In a few hours, Raoul was out of danger; but the 
countess did not leave his bedside until she had ob- 
tained from him a general confession. After the 


350 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


ambitious castaway had poured into her heart the 
pitiable elegiacs of his sorrow, she returned home 
a prey to all the torturing thoughts that had besieged 
Raoul the night before. 

“*! will arrange everything,’’ she had said to him, 
to induce him to live. 

‘‘Well, what’s the matter with your sister?’ 
Félix asked his wife when she joined him. ‘‘There’s 
a tremendous change in you, | should say.’’ 

‘*It’s a terrible story and | must keep it absolutely 
secret,’’ she replied, summoning all her strength in 
order to appear calm. 

In order to be alone and to think at her ease, she 
went in the evening to the Italiens, and thence to 
pour out her heart into Madame du Tillet’s, to whom 
she described the scene of the morning, asking her 
advice and assistance. Neither of them knew that 
Du Tillet had kindled the fire in the vulgar chafing- 
dish, the sight of which had terrified Comtesse Félix 
de Vandenesse. 

“‘He has nobody but me in the world,’’ said Marie 
to her sister, ‘fand I’ll not fail him.”’ 

That declaration contains the secret of all women’s 
hearts: they are heroic when they are certain that 
they are all the world to a great man of irreproach- 
able character. 

Du Tillet had heard the story, more or less prob- 
able, of his sister-in-law’s passion for Nathan; but 
he was one of those who denied it or deemed it in- 
compatible with the liaison between Raoul and 
Florine. The actress would be sure to drive away 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 351 


the countess, or vice versa. But when, upon re- 
turning home that evening, he found there his sis- 
ter-in-law, in whose face he had noticed at the 
Italiens, abundant evidences of intense emotion, he 
guessed that Raoul had confided his plight to her; in 
that case the countess was in love with him and had 
come to ask Marie-Eugénie for the amount due 
Gigonnet. Madame du Tillet, who was _ unac- 
quainted with the secret of what seemed supernat- 
ural penetration, exhibited such dismay that Du 
Tillet’s suspicions changed to certainty. The 
banker believed that he could soon hold in his hand 
the thread of Nathan’s intrigues. 

No one knew the poor fellow lying in bed in a fur- 
nished hotel on Rue du Mail, under the name of the 
office-boy, to whom the countess had promised five 
hundred francs if he held his tongue touching the 
events of the night and morning. So Francois Quillet 
had taken the precaution to say to the concierge that 
Nathan had been taken sick as the result of overwork. 

Du Tillet was not surprised that he did not find 
Nathan at the office. It was natural that the jour- 
nalist should go into hiding to elude the people sent 
to arrest him. When the spies arrived to make in- 
quiries, they learned that a lady had come in the 
morning and taken the editor-in-chief away. Two 
days passed before they discovered the number of 
the cab, questioned the driver, found and searched 
the hotel where the debtor was coming back to life. 
Thus the wise measures taken by Marie had pro- 
cured Nathan a reprieve of three days. 


352 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


Each of the two sisters passed a miserable night. 
Such a catastrophe casts the gleam of its charcoal 
over the whole life; it lights up the shoals and reefs, 
rather than the mountain-tops which have thus far 
engrossed the attention. Deeply impressed by the 
horrible spectacle of a young man dying in his 
chair, before his journal, writing down his last 
thoughts 42 la Romaine, poor Madame du Tillet could 
think of nothing but assisting him and restoring life 
to that heart in which her sister lived. 

It is natural to the human mind to look to effects 
before analyzing causes. Eugénie upon reflection 
thought well of her plan of applying to Baronne 
Delphine de Nucingen, with whom she was to dine 
the next night, and she did not doubt that she 
should be successful. Madame du Tillet, great- 
hearted, as are all those who have not been crushed 
between the polished steel rollers of modern society, 
resolved to take everything upon herself. 

The countess, happy in that she had already 
saved Nathan’s life, passed the night inventing 
schemes to procure forty thousand francs. At such 
crises, women are sublime. Guided by sentiment, 
‘they arrive at combinations that would surprise 
thieves, business men and usurers, if those three 
classes of toilers, licensed or not, were ever sur- 
prised at anything. The countess thought she 
would sell her diamonds, and wear false ones. She 
decided to ask Vandenesse for the money for her 
sister, whom she had already compromised; but she 
had too much nobility of soul not to recoil from 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 353 


dishonorable means; they were conceived only to be 
rejected. Vandenesse’s money to Nathan! She 
jumped up in her bed, terrified at her own wicked- 
ness. Wear false diamonds! her husband would 
discover it sooner or later. She would go to the 
Rothschilds who had so much money and ask them- 
for the amount she needed, to the Archbishop of 
Paris whose duty it was to succor the poor,—rush- 
ing from one religion to another, imploring help 
from all. She deplored the fact that her family was 
no longer in the government; the time had been 
when she could have borrowed the money on the 
outskirts of the throne. She thought of applying 
to her father. But the old magistrate had a horror 
of anything illegal; his children had learned at last 
how little he sympathized with the misfortunes of 
love; he would not allow them to be mentioned, he 
had become a misanthrope; he held every sort of 
intrigue in abomination. As for the Comtesse de 
Granville, she was living in retirement in Nor- 
mandy, on one of her estates, ending her days be- 
tween priests and bags of gold, cold to the last. 
Even if Marie had had time to reach Bayeux, would 
her mother give her so much money without know- 
ing what use would be made of it? Would she 
imagine it was to pay debts? Yes, perhaps she 
would allow herself to be softened by her favorite. 
Well then, in case of failure, the countess would go 
to Normandy. The Comte de Granville would not 
refuse to furnish her with an excuse for the 
journey by sending her word of a fictitious serious 
23 


354 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


illness from which his wife was supposed to be 
suffering. 

The lamentable spectacle that had horrified her 
in the morning, the care she had lavished upon 
Nathan, the hours passed at his bedside, his broken 
narratives, the death agony of a noble mind, the 
theft of genius arrested in its career by a common- 
place, ignoble obstacle, everything crowded in upon 
her memory to stimulate her love. She reviewed 
her emotions and felt that she was even more capti- 
vated by misery than by grandeur. Would she 
have kissed that brow if it had worn the crown of 
success? No. To her mind, there was infinite 
nobleness in the last words Nathan had said to her 
in Lady Dudley’s boudoir. What sanctity in that 
farewell! How noble to sacrifice happiness which 
would have become a means of torture to her! The 
countess had longed for emotion in her life; it 
abounded there, intense and cruel, but dear to her 
heart. She lived more completely by sorrow than 
by joy. With what ecstasy she said to herself: ‘‘] 
have saved him once, I will save him again!’’ She 
heard him crying: ‘‘Only the unfortunate know 
how far love can go!’’ when he felt her lips laid 
upon his forehead. 

**Are you sick?’’? her husband asked her, when 
he went to her room to summon her to breakfast. 

‘1 am horribly upset by the drama that’s being 
enacted at my sister’s,’’ said she, without telling a 
falsehood. 

‘*She has fallen into bad hands; it’s a disgrace to 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 355 


the family to have a Du Tillet in it, a base-born 
creature; if anything should happen to your sister 
she would get very little pity from him.’’ 

‘‘What woman is satisfied with pity ?’’ said the 
countess with a convulsive movement. ‘‘When 
you show no pity, your severity is a boon to us.”’ 

‘1 have known your nobleness of heart before 
to-day,’’ said Félix, kissing his wife’s hand, and 
deeply touched by this outburst of pride. ‘‘A 
woman who thinks like that doesn’t need to be 
watched. ’’ 

‘‘Watched!’’ she repeated. ‘‘More shame that 
reacts upon you.”’ 

Félix smiled, but Marie blushed. When a woman 
is doing wrong in secret, she carries her woman’s 
pride in public to the highest possible point. It is 
a little piece of dissimulation for which we must 
bear her no ill-will. Deception at such times 
abounds in dignity, if not in grandeur. 

Marie wrote a line to Nathan, under the name of 
Monsieur Quillet, to tell him that all was going well, 
and sent it by a messenger to the Hotel du Mail. 
In the evening, at the Opéra, the countess reaped 
the benefit of her falsehoods, for it seemed perfectly 
natural to her husband that she should leave her box 
to call upon her sister. Félix waited until Du Tillet 
had left his wife alone before he gave her his arm 
to escort her thither. With what intense emotion 
Marie’s heart was filled as she hurried through the 
corridor, entered her sister’s box and took her seat 
there with a calm and serene expression before the 


356 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


world of fashion which opened its eyes to see them 
together ! 

‘*Well ??’ said she. 

Marie-Eugénie’s face was an answer in itself; it 
fairly beamed with artless delight which many peo- 
ple attributed to satisfied vanity. 

**He will be saved, my dear, but for three months 
only, and, in the meantime, we’ll think up some 
way to assist him more permanently. Madame de 
Nucingen wants four notes for ten thousand francs 
each signed by anybody, no matter who it is, so 
that you shall not be compromised. She explained 
to me how they must be made; | didn’t understand 
a word of it, but Monsieur Nathan will write them 
for you. I simply thought Schmucke, our old 
teacher, might help us out of the difficulty; he 
would sign them. If you send with the four notes 
a letter in which you guarantee their payment, Ma- 
dame de Nucingen will let you have the money to- 
morrow. Do everything yourself, don’t trust a 
soul. I don’t think Schmucke will have any objec- 
tions to make. To avoid suspicion on her part, | 
said that you wanted to oblige our old music-teacher, 
a German who has had bad luck. So I was justified 
in asking her to keep the matter a profound secret.”’ 

**You’re as clever as an angel! If only the 
Baronne de Nucingen won’t talk about it until she’s 
given me the money!’’ said the countess, raising 
her eyes as if to implore God’s assistance although 
she was at the Opéra. 

“‘Schmucke lives on Rue de Nevers, that short 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 357 


street on Quai Conti; don’t forget, and go there 
yourself. ”’ 

‘“‘Thank you, dear,’’ said the countess pressing 
her sister’shand. ‘‘Ah! I would give ten years of 
my life—’’ 

‘‘To have in your old age—’’ 

‘*To put an end to such agony forever,’’ said the 
countess, smiling at the interruption. 

All those who had their glasses fixed upon the 
sisters at that moment, would have believed, observ- 
ing with admiration their ingenuous laughter, that 
they were discussing the most trivial matters; but 
one of those idlers who frequent the Opéra rather to 
scrutinize the toilettes and the faces than to enjoy 
the music, might have guessed the countess’s secret, 
had he remarked the violent emotion that suddenly 
extinguished the joyous expression of those two 
lovely faces. Raoul, who had no occasion to fear 
the bailiffs at night, appeared, pale and wan, with 
restless eye and clouded brow, upon the step of the 
staircase where he usually stood. He looked for 
the countess in her box, saw that it was empty and 
hid his face in his hands, resting his elbow on the 
rail. 

‘*As if she could be at the Opéra!’’ he thought. 

“‘Pray look at us, you poor great man,’’ said 
Madame du Tillet in an undertone. 

As for Marie, at the risk of compromising herself, 
she fixed upon him that piercing, steadfast gaze, in 
which the will gushed from the eyes, as the waves 
of light gush from the sun, and which, according to 


358 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


the mesmerists, penetrates the being of the person 
at whom it is directed. Raoul seemed to have been 
touched by a magic wand; he raised his head and 
his eye suddenly met those of the two sisters. 
With the adorable ready wit that never abandons a 
woman, Madame de Vandenesse seized a cross that 
lay against her throat, and held it up to him with 
a rapid, meaning smile. The jewel cast a gleam 
upon Raoul’s brow, and he replied with a joyful ex- 
pression; he understood. 

‘Is it not worth while, Eugénie,’’ said the count- 
ess to her sister, ‘‘to restore a dead man to life in 
this way ?”’ 

“*You are entitled to join the Society to Relieve 
Shipwrecked Sailors,’’ replied Eugénie, with a 
smile. 

“How sad and cast down he was when he came, 
but how happy he will go away!’’ 

‘‘Well, how are you getting on, my dear boy?’’ 
said Du Tillet, accosting Raoul with every appear- 
ance of friendliness, and pressing his hand. 

‘‘Why, like a man who has just received most 
encouraging reports of the elections. I shall be 
elected,’’ replied Raoul, with radiant face. 

“‘Delighted,’’ rejoined Du Tillet. ‘‘We must 
have some money for the paper soon.”’ 

‘‘We shall find some,’’ said Raoul. 

“‘Women have the devil on their side!’’ said Du 
Tillet without seeming to heed Raoul’s words, whom 
he had dubbed Charnathan. 

‘*What’s the matter ?”’ asked Raoul. 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 359 


‘*My sister-in-law is in my wife’s box,’’ said the 
banker; ‘‘there’s some deviltry on hand. The 
countess seems to be very fond of you, she bows to 
you across the whole hall.’’ 

‘‘Look,’’? said Madame du Tillet to her sister, 
‘the’s lying about us; my husband is wheedling 
Monsieur Nathan, and he’s the man who’s trying to 
put him in prison!’’ 

“And men accuse us!’’ cried the countess. ‘‘I’ll 
enlighten him.’’ 

She rose, took Vandenesse’s arm—he was waiting 
for her in the corridor—and returned with radiant 
face to her box; then she left the Opéra, ordered 
her carriage to be ready before eight o’clock in the 
morning, and at half-past eight was on the Quai 
Conti, having taken Rue du Mail on the way. 


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* 


The carriage could not drive into the little Rue de 
Nevers; but as Schmucke lived in a house at the 
corner of the quay, the countess was not compelled 
to walk in the mud; she could almost jump from her 
carriage-step to the filthy, ruinous hall of the dingy 
old house, which was patched up with iron rivets 
like a concierge’s crockery, and leaned over the 
street in a way to alarm passers-by. 

The old precentor lived on the fourth floor, and 
enjoyed a lovely view of the Seine, from Pont Neuf 
to the hill of Chaillot. The good creature was so 
surprised when the footman announced his former 
pupil that, in his stupefaction, he allowed her to 
enter his apartment. 

The countess had never imagined nor suspected 
the manner of existence suddenly revealed to her 
eyes, although she had long known Schmucke’s pro- 
found contempt for dress and his very slight interest 
in the things of this world. Who could have con- 
ceived the absolute freedom and heedlessness of 
such a life? Schmucke was a musical Diogenes, he 
was not ashamed of his lack of order; he would have 
denied it, he was so used to it. The incessant use 
of a great German pipe had spread over the ceiling, 
over the wretched paper on the walls, scratched in 
numberless places by a cat, a yellowish tint, which 
gave everything in the room the aspect of Ceres’ 

(361) 


362 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


golden harvests. The cat, clothed in a magnificent 
coat of long, tangled, silky hair that would have 
made a concierge green with envy, was present like 
the mistress of the house, undisturbed, with a grave 
bearded face. From the top of a fine Vienna piano 
where he was sitting magisterially, he cast upon the 
countess, when she entered, the same simpering yet 
indifferent glance with which any woman amazed 
at her beauty would have greeted her. He did not 
move, he simply waggled the silver threads of his 
straight moustaches and carried his golden eyes back 
to Schmucke. The piano, which was a decrepit 
affair, with a wooden frame painted black and gold, 
but dirty and dingy and cracked, exhibited a set of 
keys worn like an old horse’s teeth, and yellowed 
by the fumes of pipe smoke. Little heaps of ashes 
on the keyboard told how Schmucke had ridden the 
old instrument to some musical debauch the night 
before. The floor, covered with dried mud, torn 
papers, pipe ashes and other inexplicable rubbish, 
resembled the floor of a boarding school when it has 
not been swept for a week, whence the servants 
eject piles of litter fitted for some place between 
the dungheap and the rag bag. A more practised 
eye than the countess’s would have learned some- 
thing concerning Schmucke’s life from the chestnut 
shells, apple-parings and eggshells in plates care- 
lessly broken and dirty with sauerkraut. This 
German detritus formed a carpet of unclean particles 
which cracked under the feet and centred about a 
heap of ashes that descended majestically from a 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 363 


fireplace of painted stone, where a great lump of 
pit-coal sat enthroned with two sticks of wood pre- 
tending to burn in front of it. Over the fireplace 
was a pier glass :in which faces seemed to be 
dancing a saraband; on one side hung the glorious 
pipe; on the other, was a Chinese jar in which the 
professor kept his tobacco. Two armchairs pur- 
chased at second-hand, as was the thin, flat couch, 
the worm-eaten commode with no marble top, and 
the rickety table on which were the remains of a 
frugal breakfast, composed the furniture of the 
apartment, simple as that of a Mohican’s wigwam. 
A shaving-glass hanging on the sash of the curtain- 
less window, surmounted by a tattered cloth streaked 
with dirt where the razor had been cleaned upon it, 
pointed to the only sacrifice Schmucke was accus- 
tomed to make to the Graces and to society. The 
cat, a feeble creature and his protégé, was the better 
favored; he revelled in an old sofa-cushion beside 
which were a cup and plate of white porcelain. But 
the thing that no words can describe was the condi- 
tion to which Schmucke, his cat and his pipe, a 
living trinity, had reduced these articles of furni- 
ture. The pipe had burned the table here and there. 
The cat and Schmucke’s head had smeared the green 
Utrecht velvet of the two armchairs with grease so 
thoroughly as to remove its rough surface. Except 
for the cat’s splendid tail, which did its share of the 
housekeeping, the uncovered places on the commode 
and the piano would never have been swept. Ina 
corner were piled the shoes which none but a Homer 


364 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


could enumerate. The tops of the commode and 
piano were littered with music-books, with cracked 
worm-eaten backs, and mouldy, whitened corners, 
where the myriad layers of the pasteboard could be 
seen. The walls were plastered with great wafers 
to hold pupils’ addresses. The number of wafers 
without papers represented addresses that had 
ceased to be. On the wall-paper were calculations 
made in chalk. The commode was adorned with 
beer jugs emptied the night before, which looked 
new and shiny amid all the old lumber and waste 
paper. Hygiene was represented by a jug of water 
covered with a towel, and a piece of common white 
soap, streaked with blue, which had spotted the 
rosewood in several places. Two hats of equal age 
were hanging on a hatrack, where the same old 
box-coat with three capes, that the countess had 
always seen Schmucke wear was also hanging. On 
the window-sill were three pots of flowers, German 
flowers of course, and near by a holly walking- 
stick. 

Although the countess’s sight and smell were dis- 
agreeably affected, Schmucke’s smile and glance 
concealed these wretched details from her with rays 
of celestial light which made the yellow tints a 
blaze of glory and vivified the chaos. The soul of 
this divine creature, who knew and revealed so many 
divine things, sparkled like a sun. His hearty, in- 
genuous laugh at the sight of one of his Saint- 
Cecilias, was instinct with youth and gaiety and 
innocence. He poured forth man’s dearest treasures 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 365 


and made with them a cloak to hide his poverty. 
The most disdainful parvenu might well have 
deemed it a base thing to think of the frame in 
which this glorious apostle of the religion of music 
was Set. 

“‘Ah! py vat chance to you gome here, tear Mon- 
tame la Gondesse?’’ saidhe. ‘‘Must I zing de zong 
of Zimeon ad my atche?’’ 

This idea caused a renewed immoderate outburst 
of laughter. 

**Am I in gut lug?’”’ he continued with a cunning 
look. 

Then he began to laugh again like a child. 

“You gome vor de musik und nod vor ein boor 
man. I know,’’ he said ina melancholy tone; ‘‘put 
gome for vat you vill, you know dat here everyding 
is for you, poty unt soul unt broberdy!’’ 

He took the countess’s hand, kissed it and depos- 
ited a tear upon it, for in the honest creature’s mind 
every day was but the day after a benefaction. His 
joy had deprived him of his memory for a moment, 
only to restore it in all its force. He at once seized 
the chalk, leaped upon the armchair that stood by 
the piano, and wrote on the paper, as rapidly as a 
young man, in large letters: FEBRUARY 17, 1835. 
This pretty, ingenuous movement was executed in 
such a frenzy of gratitude that the countess was 
deeply moved. 

**My sister is coming to see you,”’ she said. 

“De oder alzo! Ven? ven? may it pe pefore | 
tie!’ 


366 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


“She will come to thank you for a very great 
favor which I am going to ask you to do for her,’’ 
she continued. 

**Gwick! gwick, gwick, gwick!’’ cried Schmucke. 
“‘Vat moost I to? Go to de teufel ?”’ 

“Nothing but write: Accepted for the sum of ten 
thousand francs on each of these papers,’’ she said, 
taking from her muff four notes of hand drawn in 
proper form by Nathan. 

**Ha! dat vill pe zoon made,’’ replied the Ger- 
man, as meek as a lamb. ‘‘Pud1 know not vere 
are mein bens unt mein ink.—Get you avay vrom 
dere, Meinherr Mirr,’’ he cried to the cat, who stared 
coldly athim. ‘‘Datist mein kat,’’ he said, pointing 
him out to the countess. ‘‘Eed eez de boor animal 
vat leefs mit boor Schmucke! He ees hantzoom??’ 

‘*Yes,’’ said the countess. 

**Vood you lige him ?”’ said he. 

*‘Do you think of such a thing?’’ she replied. 
‘*Isn’t he your friend ?”’ 

The cat, who was hiding the inkstand, seemed to 
understand that Schmucke wanted it, and leaped 
on to the bed. 

‘*He ees meesjefus as ein mongey,’’ said Schmucke 
pointing to him on the bed. ‘‘I call him Mirr, to 
clorivy our crate Hoffman of Perlin, whom I ferry 
vell knew.”’ 

The worthy man signed the notes with the un- 
questioning obedience of a child who does what his 
mother tells him to do, without understanding any- 
thing about it, but sure that he is doing right. He 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 367 


was much more interested in the cat’s introduction 
to the countess than in documents by virtue of 
which, according to the provisions of the law 
relative to foreigners, he might be deprived of his 
liberty forever. 

“*You azzure me dat deze liddle ztampt babers—’’ 

‘Don’t be in the least alarmed,’’ said the count- 
ess. 

‘1 am not alarmt,’’ he replied sharply. ‘‘I zay 
vill dese liddle ztampt babers bleaze Montame ti 
Dilet?”’ 

“Oh! yes,’’ said she, ‘‘you are doing her as great 
a service as if you were her father.’’ 

“Den I am ferry habby to pe to her ofe zome 
zerfiss. Hear me blay!’’ he exclaimed, laying the 
papers on the table and leaping to his piano. 

The angel’s hands were already galloping over 
the old keys, his eyes were already gazing through 
the roof to the skies, the most enchanting of songs 
was already springing into life in the air and mak- 
ing its way into the heart; but the countess did not 
allow this childlike interpreter of things celestial to 
make the keys and chords sing,—as Raphael’s Saint- 
Cecilia does for the listening angels,—after the ink 
had had time to dry: she slipped the notes into her 
muff and called her radiant master back from the 
ethereal realms through which he was soaring, by 
putting her hand on his shoulder. 

‘‘My dear Schmucke,”’ said she. 

‘“‘Alretty!’? he cried, with pitiable resignation. 
“Vy haf you gome ad all ?’’ 


368 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


He did not complain; he stood up like a faithful 
dog, to listen to the countess. 

‘My dear Schmucke,’’ she continued, ‘‘it’s a 
matter of life and death; every minute is a saving 
of blood and tears.”’ 

‘‘Alvays de same,’’ said he. ‘‘Go, anchel! try 
de dears of oders! Be zhur dat boor Schmucke ab- 
brezhiates your fizid more dan your benzhun!’’ 

‘We shall meet again,’’ said she; ‘‘you must 
come and play for us and dine with us every Sunday, 
under pain of making bad blood between us, I ex- 
pect you next Sunday.”’ 

**Druly ?”’ 

**I1 beg you to come, and my sister will doubtless 
appoint a day also.”’ 

‘‘Den my habbiness vill pe gombleed,’’ said he, 
“for I only haf zeen you at de Champs-Hailyssées 
ven you haf bast dat vay in ein garritch, ferry zel- 
dom !’’ 

This thought dried the tears that were collecting 
in his eyes, and he offered his arm to his lovely 
pupil, who felt the old man’s heart beating wildly. 

‘**So you think of us sometimes ?’’ said she. 

“‘Alvays ven eading my pret!’’ he replied. ‘In 
de furst blaize az my penefacdresses, unt den as de 
du furst madchens voordy to pe lofed I haf effer 
known!’’ 

The countess dared say no more. There was an 
indescribable solemnity, respectful, faithful, reli- 
gious, in that phrase. The smoky, dirt-encumbered 
room was a temple inhabited by two divinities. 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 369 


Pure sentiment was growing hour by hour there, 
unknown to those who inspired it. 

‘‘Here we are loved, dearly loved,’’ she thought. 

The emotion with which old Schmucke watched 
the countess enter her carriage, was shared by her, 
and with the ends of her fingers she sent him one of 
the dainty kisses with which ladies bid one an- 
other good morning at a distance. That sight kept 
Schmucke planted upon the sidewalk long after the 
carriage had disappeared. A few moments later the 
countess drove into the courtyard of Madame de 
Nucingen’s mansion. The baroness was not up; 
but, in order not to keep a lady of such high rank 
waiting in her anteroom, she arrayed herself in a 
peignoir and threw on a shawl. 

“‘1 come in the interest of a kind action, ma- 
dame,’’ said the countess, ‘‘so that promptness is a 
great favor; except for that I would not have dis- 
turbed you so early.”’ 

‘‘Why, I am only too happy,’’ said the banker’s 
wife, taking the four notes and the countess’s guar- 
anty. 

She rang for her maid. 

‘*Thérése, tell the cashier to bring me forty 
thousand francs himself, instantly.”’ 

Then she placed Madame de Vandenesse’s letter 
in a secret drawer of her table, after sealing it. 

“*You have a lovely room,”’ said the countess. 

‘*Monsieur de Nucingen is going to take it away 
from me; he’s building a new house.”’ 

“You'll give this one to your daughter, no 

24 


370 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


doubt. They say she is to marry Monsieur de 
Rastignac.”’ 

The cashier appeared just as Madame de Nucingen 
was about to reply; she took the bank-notes and 
handed him the four notes of hand. 

‘‘That will make your accounts balance,’’ she said 
to the cashier. 

‘*All put de tiscound,’’ said the cashier. ‘‘Dis 
Schmucke ees ein musicien von Anspach,’’ he added 
as he saw the signature, thereby causing the count- 
ess to shudder. 

‘‘Am I in business, pray?’’ said Madame de Nu- 
cingen, rebuking the cashier with a haughty glance. 
“*This is my affair.’’ 

The cashier gazed in vain from the countess to 
the baroness; their features betrayed nothing. 

“‘Go, leave us.—Be good enough to remain a few 
moments in order not to make them think that you 
had any interest in this matter,’’ said the baroness 
to Madame de Vandenesse. 

‘“*] will ask you to add to your very great kind- 
ness the further favor of keeping this transaction 
secret,’’ rejoined the countess. 

‘‘For a kind action, that goes without saying,’’ 
replied the baroness with a smile. ‘‘I am going to 
send your carriage round to the rear of the garden 
without you; then we will walk across the garden 
together and no one will see you leave the house; 
it will make the whole affair perfectly inexplicable.”’ 

**You are as charitable as one who has suffered,’’ 
said the countess, 


a e 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 371 


**1 don’t know if I am charitable, but I have suf- 
fered terribly,’’ said the baroness. ‘‘Your suffering 
has been to better purpose, | trust.’’ 

As soon as the order was given the countess put 
on her fur-lined slippers and a pelisse, and escorted 
the countess to the gate at the rear of her garden. 














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* 


When a man has concocted a scheme like that Du 
Tillet had concocted against Nathan, he confides it 
to noone. Nucingen knew something of it, but his 
wife was an entire stranger to these Machiavelian 
manceuvres. But the baroness knew that Raoul 
was financially embarrassed, and she was not fooled 
by the sisters; she had a shrewd idea whose hands 
the money would go to and she was delighted to 
oblige the countess; indeed she had profound com- 
passion for embarrassment of that description. 
Rastignac, who was in a position to fathom the 
schemes of the two bankers, came to breakfast with 
her. Delphine and Rastignac had no secrets from 
each other, and she described her interview with 
the countess. Rastignac, incapable of imagining 
that the baroness could ever be involved in this 
affair, which was in his eyes subsidiary to the main 
scheme, one means among many, enlightened her 
concerning it. Delphine had perhaps ruined Du 
Tillet’s chances of election and rendered of no avail 
the trickery and sacrifices of a whole year. Rasti- 
gnac, thereupon, posted the baroness fully, and 
urged her to keep silent as to the mistake she had 
made. 

“*If only the cashier doesn’t mention it to Nucin- 
gen,’’ said she. 

(373) 


374 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


A few moments before noon, while Du Tillet was 
at lunch, Gigonnet was announced. 

‘‘Show him in,’’ said the banker, although his 
wife was at the table. 

**Well, my old Shylock, is our man boxed up?”’ 

‘*No;?? 

“‘How’s that? Didn’t I tell you he was in Rue du 
Mail, Hotel—’’ 

‘*He’s paid,’’ said Gigonnet, taking forty bank- 
notes from his pocket. 

- Du Tillet’s face assumed a desperate expres- 
sion. 

‘‘We must never turn a cold shoulder on good 
crowns,’’ said Du Tillet’s unemotional associate; 
“that may bring bad luck.’”’ 

‘‘Where did you get that money, madame ?”’ said 
the banker, glaring at his wife in a way that made 
her blush to the roots of her hair. 

‘1 don’t know what you mean by such a ques- 
tion,’’said she. 

“I?ll go to the bottom of this mystery,’’ he re- 
torted, leaving the table in a rage. ‘‘You have 
upset my most cherished plans.”’ 

“*You’ll upset your own lunch,’’ said Gigonnet, 
seizing the tablecloth, which was entangled with 
the skirt of Du Tillet’s dressing-gown. 

Madame du Tillet coolly rose to leave the room, 
for his words terrified her. She rang, and a footman 
appeared. 

‘*My horses,’’ said she. ‘‘Send for Virginie; | 
wish to dress. ’’ 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 375 


‘‘Where are you going?’’ snarled Du Tillet. 

‘*Well-bred husbands don’t question their wives, ”’ 
she retorted, ‘‘and you pretend to act like a gentle- 
man.’’ 

“*l shouldn’t know you these last two days, since 
you’ve seen your impertinent sister twice.”’ 

‘*You ordered me to be impertinent,’’ said she; 
“1 am making a trial on you.’”’ 

“Your servant, madame,’”’ said Gigonnet, but 
little interested in a family quarrel. 

Du Tillet gazed fixedly at his wife, who returned 
his gaze without lowering her eyes. 

‘*What does this mean ?’’ said he. 

“*That I am no longer a little girl whom you can 
frighten,’’ she replied. ‘‘Il am and shall be all my 
life a good and loyal wife to you; you can be a 
master, if you choose, but a tyrant, no!’’ 

Du Tillet went out. 

Marie-Eugénie returned to her apartments worn 
out, after this effort. 

‘*If it hadn’t been for my sister’s danger,’’ she 
said to herself, ‘‘I should never have dared to defy 
him thus; but, as the proverb says, it’s an ill wind 
that blows nobody good.”’ 

During the night, Madame du Tillet had gone over 
in her mind her sister’s confidential conversation 
with her. Sure of Raoul’s safety, her mind was no 
longer dominated by the thought of that imminent 
danger. She remembered the terrible earnestness 
with which the countess had spoken of flying with 
Nathan to console him for his disaster, if she could 


376 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


not prevent it. She realized that the man might in- 
duce her sister, by the very excess of his gratitude 
and love, to do what the sage Eugénie looked 
upon as downright madness. There were recent 
instances in high life of such flights, which pur- 
chased a little uncertain pleasure at the cost of re- 
morse and the loss of consideration suffered by those 
who occupy a false position; Eugénie remembered 
their frightful results. Du Tillet’s words increased 
her alarm beyond measure; she feared that the 
whole thing would be discovered; she saw the 
Comtesse de Vandenesse’s signature in the portfolio 
of the Nucingen establishment; she determined 
to implore her sister to confess everything to 
Félix. 

Madame du Tillet did not find the countess. 
Félix was at home. A voice in her heart cried out 
to Eugénie to save her sister. To-morrow, perhaps, 
it would be too late. She took a great deal upon 
herself, but she resolved to tell the count the whole 
story. Would he not be indulgent when he found 
that his honor was still untarnished? The countess 
was misled rather than perverted. Eugénie feared 
that she was a coward and traitress to divulge 
secrets which all classes of society agree in respect- 
ing; but she looked forward to her sister’s future, 
she trembled at the thought of finding her some day 
alone, ruined by Nathan, poor, ill, unhappy, in 
despair; she hesitated no longer, but sent to request 
the count to receive her. Félix, surprised at her 
visit, had a long conversation with his sister-in-law, 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 377 


during which he seemed so calm and so self-con- 
trolled that she trembled lest he should decide upon 
some terrible resolution. 

‘*Have no fear,’’? Vandenesse said to her, ‘‘I will 
conduct myself in such a way that the countess will 
bless you some day. However disinclined you may 
be to conceal from her the fact that you have told 
me, give me credit for a few days. A few days 
are necessary to enable me to go to the bottom 
of certain mysterious circumstances which you 
do not perceive, and more than all else to enable 
me to act with prudence. Perhaps I shall clear 
up everything in a moment! I alone am guilty, 
my sister. All lovers play their little game; but 
all women are not fortunate enough to see life as 
iiss” 

Madame du Tillet took her leave, much comforted. 
Félix de Vandenesse went at once to the Banque 
de France and drew forty thousand francs; he hur- 
ried to Madame de Nucingen’s, found her at home, 
thanked her for the confidence she had placed in his 
wife, and paid back the money. He explained this 
mysterious loan as due to the extravagant demands 
of a benevolence to which he had determined to put 
bounds. 

“*You need give me no explanation, monsieur, as 
Madame de Vandenesse has confessed everything to 
you,’’ said the Baronne de Nucingen. 

‘She knows all,’’ thought Vandenesse. 

The baroness handed him the letter of guaranty 
and sent for the four notes. Vandenesse, during this 


378 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


brief interval, bestowed upon the baroness the 
penetrating glance of a statesman; he almost dis- 
turbed her equanimity, and he deemed the moment 
propitious for negotiation. 

‘We live in a time when nothing is sure, ma- 
dame,’’ he said. ‘‘Thrones rise and disappear in 
France with frightful rapidity. Fifteen years make 
an end of a great empire, a monarchy, and a revo- 
lution as well. No one would dare take it upon 
himself to answer for the future. You know my 
attachment to the legitimate line. There is nothing 
extraordinary about these words coming from my 
mouth. Suppose anything should happen: wouldn’t 
you be glad to have a friend in the triumphant 
party ?”’ 

“*Most assuredly,’’ she replied with a smile. 

**Very well, do you care to have in me a debtor 
who could retain for Monsieur de Nucingen, if need 
were, the peerage to which he aspires ?”’ 

“‘What do you want me to do?”’ she cried. 

“Very little,’? was the reply. ‘‘Tell me all you 
know about Nathan.’’ 

The baroness repeated the conversation she had 
had that morning with Rastignac, and said to the 
ex-peer of France as she handed him the four notes 
of hand brought to her by the cashier: 

**Don’t forget your promise. ’”’ 

Vandenesse was so far from forgetting that magical 
promise that he dangled it before the Baron de Ras- 
tignac’s eyes as a means of obtaining some addi- 
tional information from him. 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 379 


When he left the baron, he dictated to a public 
scrivener the following letter to Florine: 


“If Mademoiselle Florine wishes to know the first part she 
is to play, she is requested to attend the next ball at the 
Opéra, and to procure the escort of Monsieur Nathan.” 


Having put the letter in the post he went to his 
man of business, a very clever, keen-witted fellow, 
albeit perfectly honest; he asked him to play the 
part of a friend of Schmucke, to whom the German, 
feeling apprehensive somewhat tardily as to the 
meaning of the words: Accepted for ten thousand 
francs, repeated four times, had confided the secret 
of Madame de Vandenesse’s visit; in that capacity 
he was to go and ask Monsieur Nathan for a note for 
forty thousand francs as security. It was a bold 
game to play. Nathan might be already informed 
as to how matters had been arranged, but it was 
necessary to venture a little to gain much. In her 
excitement, Marie might very well have forgotten to 
ask her Raoul for any document to protect Schmucke. 
The man of business went at once to the newspaper 
office and returned triumphantly to the count’s house 
at five o’clock with a note for forty thousand francs ; 
at the first words he exchanged with Nathan he 
found he could safely say that the countess sent him. 

The success of this manceuvre made it necessary 
for Félix to prevent his wife from seeing Raoul until 
the Opéra ball, to which he intended to take her 
and there let her discover for herself Nathan’s rela- 
tions with Florine. He knew the countess’s jealous 


380 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


pride: he preferred to make her abandon her passion 
of her own volition, to give her no reason to blush 
beneath his eyes, and to show her in due time her 
own letters to Nathan sold by Florine, from whom 
he expected to be able to purchase them. This 
judicious plan, conceived so rapidly, already partly 
executed, was destined to fail through a trick of 
chance which modifies everything in this world. 
After dinner Félix led the conversation to the Opéra 
ball, remarking that Marie had never been to one of 
them; and he proposed that amusement to her for 
the next evening. 

‘I?ll give you some one to poke fun at,’’ said he. 

“‘Ah! you will add greatly to my pleasure.”’ 

‘To make the joke as enjoyable as possible, a 
woman ought to attack an illustrious victim, a celeb- 
rity, a man of intellect, and make him wish the 
devil had him. Would you like me to hand Nathan 
over to you? I shall have, from some one who knows 
Florine, secrets enough of his to drive him mad.”’ 

‘*Florine,’’ said the countess, ‘‘the actress ?’’ 

Marie had already heard the name in the mouth 
of Quillet, the office-boy:—it passed through her 
mind like a flash. 

‘Why, yes, his mistress,’’? replied the count. 
“Is that very surprising ?’’ 

‘*] thought Monsieur Nathan was too busy to have 
a mistress. Do authors have time to love?’’ 

“I don’t say that they love, my dear; but they 
are compelled to lodge somewhere, like all other 
men; and when they have no home of their own, 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 381 


when the bailiffs are after them, they Jodge with 
their mistresses; that may seem rather free to you, 
but it’s infinitely better than to Jodge in prison.’”’ 

The fire was less red than the countess’s cheeks. 

“Will you have him for a victim? you would 
frighten him,’’ the count continued, paying no heed 
to his wife’s face. ‘‘I will put you in a way to 
prove to him that your brother-in-law Du Tillet is 
playing with him like a child. The wretch is try- 
ing to get him into prison, so as to make it impossi- 
ble for him to come forward as his rival in the 
electoral district from which Nucingen was elected. 
I know from a friend of Florine’s, the amount real- 
ized from the sale of her furniture, which she gave 
him to found his journal; I know what she sent him 
out of the harvest she reaped last year in the prov- 
inces and in Belgium—money which eventually 
benefits Du Tillet and Nucingen and Massol. The 
three together have sold the paper to the ministry in 
advance, they are so sure of ejecting this great 
man.’’ 

‘*Monsieur Nathan is incapable of accepting money 
from an actress.”’ 

**You don’t know much about such people, my 
dear,’’ said the count; ‘‘he won’t deny the fact to 
you himself.’’ 

‘*] will certainly go to the ball,’’ said the countess. 

“You will be much amused,’’ Vandenesse re- 
joined. ‘‘With such weapons, you will be able to 
give Nathan’s self-esteem a good shaking-up, and 
you’ll do him a service, too. You'll see him 


382 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


fly into a rage, try to restrain himself and 
squirm under your stinging epigrams! In a 
joking way you can enlighten an intelligent fellow 
as to the danger that threatens him, and you will 
have the pleasure of beating the horses of the juste 
milieu in their own stable.—You aren’t listening to 
me, my dear child.’’ 

*‘On the contrary, I am listening too intently,”’ 
she replied. ‘‘I will tell you later why 1am anxious 
to be sure of all this.’’ 

‘Sure ?”? Vandenesse repeated. ‘‘Keep on your 
mask, and I will arrange it so that you will 
take supper with Nathan and Florine: it will 
be very amusing for a woman in your position to 
mystify an actress, after you have had a bout with 
a famous author and have kept his wits prancing 
about such momentous secrets; you can harness 
them both to the same mystification. I must try 
and get on the track of Nathan’s infidelities. If I 
can learn the details of a recent adventure of his, 
you will enjoy the spectacle of a courtesan’s wrath, 
a magnificent thing—Florine’s will boil and seethe 
like an Alpine torrent: she adores Nathan, he is 
everything to her; she clings to him like the flesh 
to the bones, like a lioness to her cubs. I remem- 
ber in my younger days seeing a famous actress 
who wrote like a cook come to one of my friends and 
demand her letters; I have never seen such a sight 
since—the tranquil fury, the majestic impertinence, 
the attitude of a savage—Are you ill, Marie ?”’ 

**No; they have made too much fire.”’ 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 383 


The countess threw herself upon a couch. Sud- 
denly, with an impulsive movement impossible to 
foresee, suggested doubtless by the corroding pains 
of jealousy, she stood erect upon her trembling legs, 
folded her arms and walked slowly to her husband. 

‘“What do you know?’’ she asked. ‘‘You are not 
the man to torture me, you would crush me without 
making me suffer if I were guilty.”’ 

‘*What do you want me to know, Marie ?’’ 

‘“Well, as to Nathan ?”’ 

“*You think you love him, but you love a phantom 
constructed with words.’’ 

‘Then you know—?”’ 

‘*Everything,’’ said he. 

That word fell upon Marie’s head like a club. 

“*If you prefer, I will never know anything,’’ he 
continued. ‘‘You are in a mess, my child, and we 
must get you out of it; I have been at work already. 
Look.’”’ 

He took from his pocket the letter of guaranty 
and Schmucke’s four notes of hand, which the 
countess recognized, and threw them into the fire. 

‘*What would have become of you, poor Marie, 
three months from now? You would have found 
yourself being dragged by bailiffs before the courts. 
Don’t hang your head, don’t humble yourself; you 
have been led astray by the noblest sentiments, you 
have flirted with poetic ideas and not witha man. All 
women, —all, do you hear, Marie ?—would have been 
fascinated as you were. Wouldn’t it be rather 
absurd of us men, who have committed innumerable 


384 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


follies in twenty years, to insist that you should not 
be imprudent a single time in your whole lives? 
God forbid that I should triumph over you, or over- 
whelm you with pity, which you repelled so earn- 
estly the other day. Perhaps the poor wretch was 
sincere when he wrote you, sincere in his suicide, 
sincere in going back to Florine the same evening. 
We are not to be compared with you. Iam not 
speaking for myself at this moment, but for you. | 
am indulgent, but society is not; it avoids the 
woman who makes a scandal, it does not choose that 
the same person shall enjoy perfect happiness and 
social consideration. I can’t say that it’s just. 
The world is cruel, that’s all. Perhaps it is more 
envious as a body than when taken in detail. A 
thief sitting in the pit applauds the triumph of inno- 
cence and will steal its jewels when he leaves the 
theatre. Society refuses to put down the evils it 
engenders; it awards honors to skilful trickery, and 
has no reward to bestow upon unassuming devotion. 
I know and see all this; but, if I cannot reform the 
world, at all events it is in my power to protect you 
against yourself. We have to do with a man who 
brings you nothing but misery, and not one of those 
holy, consecrated passions which sometimes com- 
mand us to sacrifice ourselves, and which carry their 
own excuses with them. It may be that! have done 
wrong not to give more variety to your life, not to 
show you the difference between tranquil happi- 
ness and the more exciting forms of enjoyment, 
traveling, diversions of all sorts. But I can account 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 385 


for the feeling that drew you toward a famous man 
by the jealousy you have caused certain women. 
Lady Dudley, Madame d’Espard, Madame de Maner- 
ville and my sister-in-law Emilie have had a hand 
in it all. Those women, against whom I tried to 
put you on your guard, have cultivated your curios- 
ity more to annoy me than to expose you to storms 
which have howled all about you without harming 
you, | trust.”’ 

As she listened to these words, instinct with kind- 
ness, the countess was stirred by a thousand con- 
flicting emotions; but the dominant force in the 
hurricane was ardent admiration for Félix. Proud 
and noble hearts are not slow to recognize the deli- 
cacy with which they aretreated. Tactof this sort 
is to the emotions what grace is tothe body. Marie 
appreciated the grandeur of soul that hastened to 
humble itself at an erring woman’s feet in order not 
to see her blushes. She fled like a madwoman, but 
returned at once, impelled by the thought of the pain 
her action might cause her husband. 

‘‘Wait,’’ she said to him, and disappeared. 

Félix had adroitly prepared an excuse for her and 
he was soon rewarded for his good judgment; for his 
wife returned with all Nathan’s letters in her hand, 
and gave them to him. 

‘Judge me,’’ said she, kneeling at his feet. 

“Is a man qualified to judge when he’s in love?’ 
was his reply. 

He took the letters and threw them into the fire, 
for he knew that in the future his wife would never 

25 


386 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


be able to forgive him for havingreadthem. Marie 
laid her head upon the count’s knees and burst into 
tears. 

‘Where are yours, my child?’’ he said, raising 
her head. 

At that question the countess ceased to feel the 
intolerable heat in her cheeks; she turned cold. 

“*In order that you may not suspect your husband 
of slandering the man you thought worthy of you, 
I will see that they are returned to you by Florine 
herself. ’’ 

“Oh! why should he not return them at my re- 
quest ?”” 

‘‘But suppose he should refuse ?”’ 

The countess hung her head. 

‘*l am sick of the world,’’ she said, ‘‘I don’t care 
to go into society any more; I will live alone with 
you if you forgive me.’”’ 

**You might be bored again. Besides, what would 
the world say if you were to turn your back on it 
abruptly? In the spring we will travel; we will go 
to Italy andall over Europe, waiting until you have 
more than one child to bring up. We must still go 
to the Opéra ball to-morrow, for we can’t get your 
letters in any other way without compromising our- 
selves; and by the very act of bringing them to you 
will not Florine demonstrate her power ?”’ 

‘‘And I shall see that thing?’’ said the horrified 
countess. 

‘‘Day after to-morrow in the morning.’’ 


* 


The next night, toward midnight, at the Opéra 
ball, Nathan was promenading in the foyer witha 
mask leaning on his arm, and with a decidedly mari- 
tal air. After two or three turns, two masked 
women accosted them. 

**Poor fool! you are ruining yourself; Marie is 
here and looking at you,’’ said Vandenesse, who 
was disguised as a woman, in Nathan’s ear. 

“If you take my advice you’ll find out what 
Nathan is keeping secret from you, and that wiil 
show you what great danger threatens your love for 
him,’’ said the countess in a trembling voice to 
Florine. 

Nathan had abruptly dropped Florine’s arm to fol- 
low the count, who passed out of sight in the crowd. 
Florine took a seat beside the countess, who led her 
to a bench where Vandenesse, having returned to 
protect his wife, was already sitting. 

‘*Explain yourself, my dear,’’ said Florine, ‘‘don’t 
think to keep me waiting here long. No one on 
earth will ever take Raoul from me, you see, for I 
hold him by habit, which is every whit as strong as 
love.”’ 

‘*In the first place, are you Florine?’’ said Félix, 
resuming his natural voice. 

‘‘That’s a bright question! if you don’t know 
that, how do you expect me to believe you, donkey ?”’ 

(387) 


388 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


**Go and ask Nathan, who is now looking for the 
mistress 1 am talking about, where he passed the 
night three days ago! He tried to suffocate himself, 
my dear, without your knowledge, for want of 
money. That’s how much you know about the 
affairs of a man you say you love, and you leave 
him without a sou, and he kills himself; or rather he 
doesn’t kill himself, he misses it. An unsuccessful 
suicide is as ridiculous as a duel without a scratch.”’ 

**You lie,’? said Florine. ‘‘He dined with me 
that day, but after sunset. The bailiffs were after 
the poor boy. He was in hiding; that’s all.’’ 

‘*Well, then, go to the Hotel du Mail on Rue du 
Mail and ask if he wasn’t brought there in a dying 
condition by a beautiful woman with whom he has 
been more or less intimate for a year; and your 
rival’s letters are hidden right under your nose in 
your own house. If you would like to give Nathan 
a good lesson, we’ll all three goto your house; there 
I will prove to you with the documents in my hand, 
that you can very soon prevent him from going to 
Rue de Clichy, if you’ll be a good girl.”’ 

‘*Try to get somebody besides Florine to go with 
you, my boy. I’m sure that Nathan can’t be in 
love with anybody.”’ 

“*You would make me believe that he has been 
more attentive than ever to you for some time past, 
but that’s the very fact that proves that he’s very 
much in love—’’ 

‘‘With a woman in society, he?—’’said Florine. 
‘‘A little thing like that doesn’t disturb me.”’ 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 389 


‘*Well, would you like to have him come and tell 
you that he won’t take you home this morning ?”’ 

“If you get him to tell me that, I’ll take you home 
with me and we’ll look for those letters, which I 
won’t believe in till 1 see them.”’ 

‘*Stay here,’’ said Félix, ‘‘and watch.” © 

He took his wife’s arm and stationed himself a 
few steps away from Florine. Soon Nathan, who 
was rushing up and down the foyer, looking every- 
where for his mask like a dog in search of his mas- 
ter, returned to the spot where he had received the 
hint. Reading his very evident preoccupation in his 
face, Florine took her stand like a wall in front of 
the journalist, and said to him in an imperious 
tone: 

“I. don’t want you to leave me; I have my 
reasons. ’”’ 

“‘Marie!—’’ the countess, at her husband’s sug- 
gestion, thereupon exclaimed in Raoul’s ear. ‘‘Who 
is this woman? Leave her instantly, go out and 
wait for me at the foot of the staircase.”’ 

In this horrible extremity, Raoul shook Florine’s 
arm violently; she was not expecting that ma- 
neeuvre, and although she tried hard to hold him, she 
was obliged to let him go. Nathan at once plunged 
into the crowd and disappeared. 

‘‘What didItell you?’’ cried Félix in the stupefied 
Florine’s ear, as he offered her his arm. 

‘“Whoever you are, come,’’ said she. ‘‘Have you 
a carriage ?’’ 

For all reply, Vandenesse hurried Florine from 


390 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


the room, and they joined his wife at a spot pre- 
viously agreed upon under the peristyle. In afew 
moments the three masks, driven at full speed by 
Vandenesse’s coachman, reached the actress’s house, 
where she removed her mask. Madame de Vande- 
nesse could not repress a start of surprise at the 
sight of Florine choking with rage, superb in her 
wrath and jealousy. 

‘*There is a certain portfolio, ’? said Vandenesse, 
‘*the key of which has never been entrusted to you; 
the letters should be in that.’’ 

‘*To tell the truth, I am puzzled; you know some- 
thing that’s been troubling me for several days,’’ 
said Florine, hurrying into the dressing-room to get 
the portfolio. 

Vandenesse saw his wife turn pale under her 
mask. Florine’s bedroom had more to say as to the 
intimacy between the actress and Nathan than an 
ideal mistress would have cared to know. The 
female eye can see to the bottom of things of that 
sort in a moment, and the countess saw, in the pro- 
miscuous condition of things, a proof of what Van- 
denesse had told her. 

Florine returned with the portfolio. 

‘*How am I to open it?’’ said she. 

She sent for her cook’s carving-knife, and when 
the maid brought it to her, waved it above her head, 
saying in a mocking tone: 

**This is what they kill chickens with!’’ 

That remark, which made the countess shudder, 
explained to her even more clearly than her husband 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 391 


had done the day before, the depth of the abyss into 
which she had almost fallen. 

‘What an idiot I am!’ said Florine; ‘‘his razor’ll 
do better.”’ 

She went to fetch the razor Nathan used for shav- 
ing, and cut a slit in the morocco large enough to 
allow Marie’s letters to pass through. Florine took 
up one of them at random. 

**Yes, this is certainly from a woman comme il 
faut. It looks to me as if there isn’t a word spelled 
wrong.”’ 

Vandenesse took the letters and handed them to 
his wife, who went to a table to look them over and 
see if they were all there. 

“‘Do you care to let me have them in exchange 
for this?’? said Vandenesse, handing Florine the 
note for forty thousand francs. 

‘What a donkey he is to sign such things !—Take 
your letters,’’ said Florine as she read the note. 
**Ah! I’ll give you countesses! And to think that I 
was killing myself body and soul in the provinces 
to scrape money together for him, and that I leta 
broker put the screws on me to save him! That’s a 
man: when you damn yourself for him, he’ll walk 
over you! He shall pay me for this.’’ 

Madame de Vandenesse had made her escape with 
the letters. 

**Hé! look here, my handsome mask! leave me 
just one of them to convince him.”’ 

‘‘That isn’t possible,’’ said Vandenesse. 

**Why not??? 


392 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


‘‘That mask is your ex-rival.’’ 

‘‘Well, she might at least have thanked me!’’ 
cried Florine. 

‘Why, what do you take the forty thousand francs 
for ?”? said Vandenesse, saluting her. 

It very rarely happens that young people, driven 
to attempt suicide, try it again after they have once 
undergone the agony of it. When the suicide fails 
to cure himself of the disease called life, he becomes 
cured of voluntary death. So it was that Raoul no 
longer had any desire to kill himself, even when he 
found that he was in a much more horrible position 
than that from which he had just been relieved, 
being confronted with the Schmucke note in Flo- 
rine’s possession, who had evidently received it 
from the Comte de Vandenesse. He tried to see the 
countess again to explain to her the nature of his love, 
which burned in his heart more ardently than ever. 
But the first time she met Raoul in society she gazed 
at him with the contemptuous stare that places an 
impassable chasm between a man and a woman. 
Despite his assurance, Nathan did not venture, dur- 
ing the rest of the winter, to speak to the countess, 
or even to go near her. 

He opened his heart to Blondet, however: he in- 
sisted upon talking to him about Laura and Beatrice, 
apropos of Madame de Vandenesse. He paraphrased 
the beautiful passage for which we are indebted to 
the pen of one of the most noteworthy poets of our 
day: ‘‘O my ideal, blue flower, with the heart of 
gold, whose fibrous roots, a thousand times more 


FLORINE, M. AND MME. DE VANDENESSE 


“Do you care to let me have them in exchange 
for this?” said Vandenesse, handing Florine the 
note for forty thousand francs. 

“What a donkey he ts to sign such things !/—Take 
your letters,’ said Florine as she read the note. 
“Ah! I'll give you countesses! And to think that I 
was killing myself body and soul in the provinces 
to scrape money together for him, and that I let a 
broker put the screws on me to save him! That's a 
man: when you damn yourself for him, hell walk 
over you! He shall pay me for this.” 


“A AUGER FA 


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A DAUGHTER OF EVE 393 


fine than fairies’ silken tresses, plunge to the deep 
recesses of the heart to drink its purest essence; 
sweet and bitter flower! we can not pluck thee that 
thou dost not cause the heart to bleed, and from the 
broken stem red drops ooze forth! Ah! cursed 
flower, how it has twined its roots about my heart!’’ 

**You’re raving, my dear fellow,’’ said Blondet; 
‘*I agree that it was a pretty flower, but it wasn’t 
ideal, and, instead of singing like a blind man in 
front of an empty niche, you’d better think about 
washing your hands so as to make your submission 
to the government and fall into line. You’re too 
great an artist to be a politician, and you’ve been 
made a fool of by men who aren’t your equals. 
Think about being made a fool of again, but in 
another place.’’ 

‘*Marie can’t prevent me from loving her,’’ said 
Nathan. ‘‘I’ll make her my Beatrice.”’ 

‘*My dear man, Beatrice was a small girl of twelve 
whom Dante never saw again; except for that, 
would she have been Beatrice? To makea divinity 
of a woman we don’t want to see her in a cloak to- 
day, to-morrow in a low-necked dress, and the day 
after on the boulevard, haggling over the price of 
toys for her youngest. When one has Florine, who 
is, at one time or another, a vaudeville duchess, a 
good bourgeoise of melodrama, negress, marchioness, 
colonel, Swiss peasant, and Virgin of the Sun in 
Peru—her only way of being a virgin, by the way— 
I can’t see how one can take chances with a society 
woman. ”’ 


394 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 


Du Tillet, in the jargon of the Bourse, closed out 
Nathan’s contracts, and the journalist parted with 
his share in the newspaper, for lackof money. The 
illustrious man had but five votes in the college which 
elected the banker. 

When the Comtesse de Vandenesse returned to 
Paris the following winter, after a long and happy 
trip through Italy, Nathan had justified all of Félix’s 
anticipations: following Blondet’s advice he was 
negotiating with the government. His personal 
affairs were in such confusion that the Comtesse 
Marie saw her former adorer on the Champs Elysées 
one day, on foot, in most lamentable array, with 
Florine on his arm. A man to whom a woman is in- 
different is passably ugly in her eyes; but when 
she has ceased to love him, he is horrible to her, 
especially when he resembles Nathan. Madame de 
Vandenesse’s cheeks flushed with shame at the 
thought that she had ever been interested in Raoul. 
If she had not been cured of all extraconjugal pas- 
sion, the contrast between the count and that other 
man who had already forfeited his claim to public 
favor would have sufficed to make her prefer her 
husband to an angel. 

To-day the ambitious youth, so rich in ink and so 
poor in will-power, has at last capitulated and taken 
refuge ina sinecure, like any man of moderate parts. 
After giving his support to all sorts of attempts at 
disorganization, he lives in peace in the shadow of 
a ministerial journal. The Cross of the Legion of 
Honor, once a fruitful subject of pleasantry to him, 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE 395 


now adorns his buttonhole. The peace at any price 
policy, upon which he had kept alive a revolution- 
ary newspaper, is to-day the object of laudatory 
articles from his pen. Hereditary right, once so 
fiercely attacked by his Saint-Simonian periods, he 
defends to-day with the authority of commonsense. 
This illogical conduct has its origin and its cause in 
the change of front on the part of certain men, who, 
during our latest political evolutions, acted in the 
same way. 


Jardies, December, 1838. 









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EIST OF -ETGHINGS 


VOLUME XVI 
PAGE 
SAVARUS AT THE WEDDING. ......- Fronts. 
THE ABBE DE GRANCEY AND SAVARUS .-..---- 160 
MADEMOISELLE: PLORING: <: 5050-0 3. cas one eas 195. 
MME. DU TILLET AND MME. DE VANDENESSE. .- - 217 
FLORINE, M. AND MME. DE VANDENESSE - - - - - 3092 


16 N. & R., A. Sav. 397 








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